GFX Morning Commentary May 22nd, 2013

Good Morning,

Today’s suggested range for the Canadian dollar against the US Dollar 1.0260 – 1.0330

Today’s suggested range for the Canadian dollar against the Euro 1.3290 – 1.3360

Today’s suggested range for the Canadian dollar against Sterling 1.5520 – 1.5590

The Canadian dollar during the Asian session was confined to narrow ranges but at the European opening sellers emerged. Most of the selling was triggered from large buy orders in  EUR/CAD. Retail sales in Canada for March is being released this morning with projections of a 0.2% rise much lower than the previous months gain of 0.8%.

In Europe the only currency gaining ground against the US dollar is the Euro. In the U.K. worse than expected  retails sales for March pushed the British Pound to a six week low against the greenback. The U.K. retail sales figure including fuel fell 1.6% in March while the median forecast  was for an increase of 0.1%.
The Swiss franc underwent renewed selling when the President of the Swiss National Bank warned the market that the SNB will continue to buy unlimited quantities of foreign currency  to defend the EUR/CHF peg at 1.20 and an adjustment of the EUR/CHF floor and negative interest rates were not excluded as a tool for keeping the currency competitive.

In North America attention is focused on the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at 10:00am  when he gives testimony to Congress. Most market participants are of the opinion that the Fed will remain dovish and will not signal any tapering of the quantitative easing. The Fed President from San Francisco mentioned last week that the summer would be a likely period for tapering the bond purchases, but with unemployment still around the 7.4% too much uncertainty exists concerning the economic recovery to jeopardize the QE program.

The Dow futures are pointing to gains of 19 points in pre-market trading. Commodities are mixed with oil  weaker by half a dollar and gold is showing marginal gains. The only U.S. economic data release is existing home sales at 10:00am.
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Have a great day!

 

Currencies	7:00am Today's Opening				Yesterday's Opening
USD/CAD		1.0305			1.0272
CAD/USD		0.9704			0.9735
EUR/USD		1.2929			1.2864
EUR/CAD		1.3327			1.3217
STG/CAD		1.5555			1.5571
AUD/CAD		1.0047			100.39
CAD/JPY		0.9984			99.87
CAD/CHF		0.9458			0.9432
CAD/HKD		7.5082			7.5336
CAD/CNY		5.9468			5.9699
CAD/MXN		11.9764			12.0056
Commodities
Gold		$1,385.00			$1,378.00
OIL		$95.69			$96.45
US DOLLAR INDEX
P.CLOSE		83.92			83.91
OPEN		83.91			84.19