AUD/USD: 0.9125EUR/USD: 1.3570The Dollar is generally under a bit of pressure today after a soft US Consumer Confidence reading put a dent in it, fanning speculation of a continuation of the current stimulus policy until well into 2014. The Euro is trading a little higher, but currently still below last week's 1.3578 high, having today topped out at 1.3574 in fairly tight trade.
Elsewhere the US building data was generally a bit better than expected, with Building Permits rising 6.2% to 1.03m in October, the highest since June 2008. The S&P Case-Schiller house price rose 13.3% yoy in September (exp 13.0%).
Further clues as to when tapering might begin, come today from the release of the US Durable Goods Orders, Initial Jobless Claims and Chicago Purchasing Managers Index. Given that much of the US market will be sitting on the sidelines ahead of Thanksgiving, tomorrow, the market could be quite volatile if the data comes in a long way from expectations, so be nimble and keep stops tight. Before that the Euro could get a boost if the German Consumer Confidence data shows an improvement.
The points to watch remain largely unchanged from yesterday and the immediate point in focus remains right here at around 1.3560 where the top of the daily cloud, the daily Kijun and the weekly Tenkan all lie. The Euro is in the process of breaking through here at the time of writing. Above 1.3578 would see a run towards 1.3600 and 1.3627 (61.8% of 1.3832/1.3294).A break of that will see further progress towards 1.3710 (76.4%) but is well out of touch for now.
On the downside, back below today's 1.3514 low would see a decline back towards the recent pivot at around 1.3490/00. Under there would find bids at 1.3464(61.8% of 1.3398/1.3578) and then to the minor rising trend/76.4% Fibo support at 1.3440. Under that bids would arrive at the 21 Nov low at 1.3396. I don’t think we are going down here yet and for the time being, if anything the Euro looks as though it could carry on to slightly higher levels. Again though, I remain fairly neutral and suspect that we are not going to see too much action, and today would use 1.3515/1.3600 as a guide. In the longer term I think the dollar will come back into favour, but it may be a little too early yet to consider this.
Economic data highlights will include:
German Consumer Confidence,US Durable Goods Orders, Initial Jobless Claims, Chicago Purchasing Managers Index
