Daily Market Review – US Session – Friday’s ECB interest rates meeting moves the market

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The EUR continued its reign over the dollar as it continued to rise and record a new 14 month high at 1.4348. More investors are holding long Euro positions awaiting tomorrow’s interest rate hike/ Most of the gains of the single currency recorded during the European Session took place between the hours of 14:30GMT and 16:00GMT during which the Euro gained a near 75pip to recover from an early low to a new 14 month high. During the day the European GDP for quarter 4 was announced at 0.3% which was the market speculated. The EURUSD pair is currently traded at 1.4345 and with the ECB interest rates policy taking place tomorrow the single currency could be skyrocketed if the rates take the 0.25% expected hike.

The sterling made gains against the US Dollar during the US Session reaching to a high of 1.6340 and currently traded at 1.6333. During the European Session the industrial production data for the month of February were announced to be very weak compared to what the market expected costing the sterling 78pips that were recovered during the US session. The Bank of England will announce tomorrow an interest rate decision shortly before the ECB does which will be extremely important for the currency.

The CHF recorded some losses against the USD dollar but they were not as big compared to ones against the Euro, where the Franc recorded a yearly low, as the US Dollar has also made massive losses from the single currency. Investors sold their Swiss Francs to buy Euros expecting to be benefited from the ECB interest rate hike and hence a drop in the Franc value. A rise in the Swiss inflation values combined with a trend for carry trading which is not benefiting low yield currencies are making the Swiss Franc vulnerable.

The Canadian Dollar recorded a fresh 3 year high against its greenback counterpart as it has benefited from so many sources. Being a commodity based currency it has made significant gains from the rise in oil and gold prices and also from speculations for an interest rate hike in the future. In addition to that and with the USD weakening from the Euro due to tomorrow’s ECB interest rate decision, all this factors have brought the USDCAD has reached as low as 0.9568. The USD appears to be developing some recoveries as it is currently traded at session high.

The precious metal recorded a new record high for a second straight day following the weakening of the US Dollar from the Euro. Gold was traded as high as USD1462.03 an ounce has dropped in value for a while and is currently following an upwards movement in the USD1460 level which were the session’s opening levels.