Yesterday’s Market Wrap

Yesterday markets started with a slight bullish gap in risk assets, which continued to push higher in the Asian session, following the sentiment from last Friday, as the USD turned bearish on comments from FOMC members that the FED will slow to 25 basis points hikes in the coming meetings.  Yesterday the US Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen made further remarks, saying that there’s a good feeling overall that inflation is coming down, while employment remains tight.

The ECB continues to remain hawkish, with  ECB policymaker, Peter Kažimír saying that they need to deliver two more 50 bps rate hikes, which pushed EUR/USD above 1.09, but retreated back down as the USD started to fight back. Stock markets finished with another day of gains, especially US indices, while commodities were little changed.

Today’s Market Expectations

Today we will see if the positive risk sentiment will pick up again which is negative for the USD. Although there is a lot of important economic data to be released in the meantime, having started with the European services and manufacturing numbers this morning. The UK services and manufacturing PMI report will be released right now, while later we’ll see how these sectors have been performing in the US this month.

Forex Signals Update

Last week the price action was choppy after two weeks of trendy markets, as the USD declined. Yesterday we saw a continuation of that sort of market, with the USD declining at first while risk assets moved higher, but then reversed positions. We had a technical glitch with our signals page, so we didn’t issue any signals yesterday, apart from a couple of test signals.

GOLD Bouncing Again Off MAs

Gold continues to remain quite bullish despite everything else and it is threatening last week’s highs now. Yesterday we saw a dip lower, but the 50 SMA (yellow) held as support on the H4 chat as it has done lately and buyers resumed control. So we will try to buy pullbacks lower again.

XAU/USD – 240 minute chart 

USD/JPY Tests the 100 SMA Again

USD/JPY continues to make lower highs, which means that it remains on a bearish trend since October and moving averages are helping keep it this way, as they have turned into resistance at the top. In the last two weeks, the 100 SMA (green) has stopped the retraces higher on the H4 chart sand today we are seeing another test of that moving average.

USD/CHF – Daily chart

Cryptocurrency Update

Digital coins continue to display bullish momentum, as bids keep getting bought pretty fast. They were bearish since November 2021, but the decline might have ended. We have seen some bullish pressure so far this year and in the last three weeks, we have seen the uptrend pick up pace further.

The 20 SMA Keeping BITCOIN Bullish

Bitcoin is moving up in waves, with a strong bullish move in the second week of this year, followed by a consolidation last week, then the bullish trend resumed again, gaining around 40% in value as it moves above $23,000. We saw a retrace lower last week but buyers came back so BTC iis bullish again at the moment.

BTC/USD – H4 chart

Will ETHEREUM Reach $2,000 Soon?

Ethereum was showing selling pressure last year but in the last two weeks, we have seen some strong buying momentum which sent the price above $1,600. Moving averages were doing a great job acting as support on the H4 chart and the latest bounce came at the 50 SMA (yellow).

ETH/USD – H4 chart