Forex Signals Brief for Jan 13: Phase One Deal in Focus

US Market Wrap

US markets eased back on Friday after the US jobs report came in below expectations.

While markets were not expecting big things, we saw a slight miss in the official non-farm payroll number with just 145K new jobs created throughout December.

The news took some of the lustre off stocks with the SPX ending the session a little soft and breaking its run of record highs. While the Greenback was relatively mixed, but still off the lows.

Today’s Agenda

Today will have a heavy focus on the UK with GDP due for release. This is looking like it will be quite a sluggish number at the moment so the GBP/USD could well face some pressure.

We’ll also get manufacturing production out of the UK and trade balance all of which are not where the BOE of UK Government might like.

The real focus over the coming week is clearly on the phase one trade deal which is due to be signed on Wednesday. So markets could very well be cautious on this. Clearly, this is a positive outcome, it just depends on how much it is already priced into the market.

Forex Signal Update

The FX Leaders Team finished with 7 wins from 18 signals as conditions proved tricky last week.

AUD/USD – Active Signal

The AUD/USD has been up and down lately as I said earlier today. We are short at the moment, however, price has rallied a touch in early Asian trade.

USD/CAD – Pending Signal

The USD/CAD had a very volatile week as WTI saw some large ranges. We are still on the lookout for a short signal and price appears to have put in a short term top.

Cryptocurrency Update

The BTC has been relatively bullish of late and has reclaimed the $8,000 level.

While it is a bit unclear as to who is really in control in the short-term, we can see that price is consolidating around that level.

For now, I would be looking for a break of the recent swing high or low as the true indicator of sentiment. So that would be $8,400 above or $7,700 below.