Forex Signals Brief for August 23: July Manufacturing and Services to Set the Mood for the Week

Yesterday’s Market Wrap

Yesterday the economic calendar was empty but there was plenty of action in financial markets nonetheless. Gas prices rose by another 8.6% in Europe and 4.2% in the US. That hurt the Euro, as it seems like the continent might be having a rough winter. As a result, EUR/USD fell below parity again and this time it seems like it will stay there.

Risk assets such as commodity dollars and stock markets continued lower, but Gold and the JPY continued to decline, which confirms once again that they are not behaving like safe havens anymore. Crude Oil saw some heightened volatility as well due to increasing Gas prices, as US WTI moved up and down in a $4 range.

Today is an important day, with the European and US services and manufacturing reports on schedule to be released. The reason central banks are starting to think about sowing down with rate hikes is the slowdown in the global economy, so today’s data will show if the economy is headed into a recession. If the numbers are negative, risk assets will probably continue the decline.

Forex Signals Update

Last week we made some nice profit, closing the vast majority of our trading signals in profit. Yeterday we continued the good performance as we remained long on the USD and short on most other assets. As a result, we closed four out of four trading signals in profit. The losing silver Signal displayed on the signals history is a wrong signal, although we opened another sell Silver signal after that.

Selling SILVER at the 20 SMA

Silver has been declining since the middle of this month as the USD turned bullish. The 20 SMA (gray) has turned into resistance on the daily chart, pushing the price down which indicates that the selling pressure is strong. We decided to open a sell signal at the 20 SMA as it was rejecting the price yesterday.

Silver XAG – 60 minute chart

Selling EUR/USD 

EUR/USD continues to remain quite bearish trend since earlier this month and it has resumed the decline again, falling below parity for the second time this year. This time it seems like the break below 1 will be sustainable and yesterday our sell signal here closed in profit.

GBP/USD – Daily chart

Cryptocurrency Update

Cryptocurrencies turned bearish last week after being on an ascending channel Although the decline seems to have stopped and crypto coins have slowly started to crawl higher again. Although there is still uncertainty in the crypto market as risk sentiment remains negative.

 BITCOIN Making Small Gains After Breaking the Channel

Bitcoin finally broke the range to the downside after bring bullish for two months since June, as the sentiment improved in the crypto market. A bullish channel formed on the daily chart, following the last crash in early June, and we have been buying BTC/USD during pullbacks lower. We opened a signal at the bottom of the range after the rejection at the 100 SMA, hoping for another bounce,  but the breakout happened.

BTC/USD – 240 minute chart

The 100 SMA Keeps Holding as Support for ETHEREUM 

Ethereum remains one of the most bullish cryptocurrencies, despite the last pullback lower. The decline stopped at moving averages which are acting as support and we decided to open another buy Ethereum signal since the stochastic indicator is oversold as well on this timeframe.

ETH/USD – Daily chart