US Market Wrap

US markets rallied to start the week, on the back of the news that a second vaccine is effective and on track to be released in the coming months.

Moderna’s COVID vaccine is 94.5%, making it slightly better than the Pfizer vaccine that had results released last week.

The news helped the risk trade, with the NZD/USD and other risk assets leading the charge higher.

While it still looks like these candidates won’t be released broadly until early in 2021, the good news is that there is hope at the end of the tunnel.

The Data Agenda

All the focus today will still be around the COVID vaccine trade and whether or not the record highs in stocks are able to hold up.

Data wise, there are some numbers that we can look to though. The big one today is really US retail sales.

Despite the various states that are still locked down to some degree, retail sales are holding up and rebounding. We are expecting the October number to come in at 0.5%, down from 1.9% – but still positive.

As is the case all week long, we are looking at a number of central bank speakers and today, both the GBP/USD and EUR/USD will be focused on their respective Governors. Although, we are not likely to hear much by way of market-moving information.

Forex Signal Update

The FX Leaders Team found 1 winner from 1 trade yesterday, as some of the risk-off assets whipped around on the news. Keep watching the forex signals page, as the vaccine news is likely to help build more momentum in all markets, but certainly the SPX.

EUR/GBP – Active Signal 

The EUR/GBP is still holding nicely in this downtrend and while price is under the 0.9000 level, we’ll remain short.

AUD/USD – Pending Signal 

The AUD/USD is looking strong at the moment and we are on the hunt for a long signal on a pullback.

Cryptocurrency Update

Once again BTC has rallied on the positive news and is continuing to look very bullish.

Everything we wrote about last week, continues to hold true, with support at the $16,000 level remaining very strong.

The whippy nature of Bitcoin is really the main issue here, but otherwise, I suspect we are on track for a test of that $17,000 level in the coming days.