US Market Wrap

Despite a positive week or so on Wall Street, markets backed off yesterday as more negative data started to paint a clearer picture of what the economy is working with.

US retail sales slumped to -8.7% for the month which was worse than analysts were expecting.

This lead to a move away from risk assets and back into the likes of the USD. The SPX put in a red day and that is also contributing to the weakness in pairs like the AUD/USD and NZD/USD today.

WTI keeps on going from bad to worse and despite the production cuts, price has now fallen back to the $20 handle, which is a dire situation for producers. While inventories are now continuing to pile up and demand keeps on falling.

As we have been seeing recently, GOLD remains a strong performer and is still above the $1700 level, while it did ease back off the recent highs.

Today’s Agenda

The big focus of the trading week is certainly today’s US jobless claims. While the relief rally that we’ve seen in stocks and risk assets has been good for investors, as the poor data starts to roll out in the coming weeks, sentiment might take another dip.

So far the jobless claims numbers have been poor, but not overwhelming. Today, we will be expecting another result around the 5 million mark, but anything more and we could see prices of risk-on pairs get hit – as we did after retail sales yesterday.

Elsewhere, we are also going to be seeing some business climate data and CPI out of Germany, which would certainly impact the EUR/USD. While there is Eurozone Industrial Production to keep an eye one.

Forex Signal Update

The FX Leaders Team hit two winners from three signals as the guys continue to put together a solid week.

EUR/CHF – Active Signal

The EUR/CHF has been pushing lower and is a good trade at the moment, given the risk/safety nature of the two currencies. Price is now at lows and we are short looking for a breakout to the downside.

SPX – Watching

The SPX gave back some gains yesterday, as mentioned, and while the sentiment is turning we are still under that 200-day SMA, which is the 2,900 level. This is a level we are hearing about by analysts, so we can’t be bulls until price reclaims that point.

Cryptocurrency Update

As we thought it might, BTC couldn’t break that $7,000 level and the outlook is clearly now bearish.

Price made a classic lower high, under key resistance and that would suggest more downside ahead. That said, the break of the lows didn’t really follow-through.

So now we watch how this new trendline forms and perhaps look to sell pullbacks.