Not trendy
From the Floor's not averse to following the latest trends, but NZDUSD's testing of a trendline at 74.54 after a slight miss on expectations in New Zealand's employment report, is one it will be steering clear of.
"The report was only a slight miss but NZDUSD went from 75.40 to the low 74.60s like that in an aggressive selloff," says Jeffrey Halley, reporting live from the Singapore trading floor. "There is an important trendline at 74.54 and if we break through that, we're opening up significant downside and it could happen with the kiwi under so much pressure."
NZDUSD was at 75.14 at 06:36 GMT. A cap to the upside at 77.30 is looking largely irrelevant at the moment.
AUDNZD enjoyed a sharp rise on the back of the New Zealand miss rising 150 points driven, it seems, by an expectation that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand will have to move to cut interest rates in June and July.
Head of forex strategy at Saxo Bank John J Hardy, you'll remember, lambasted the RBNZ for the folly of keeping rates high last December.
Hardy labels the New Zealand report as "not as bad as it seems", but adds that "it really doesn't matter because the market took the report and ran with it hard on rate expectations to the lows of the cycle."
Jockeying for position
Hardy's more focused on the seemingly unstoppable trajectory of EURUSD which was at 1.12566 at 0655 GMT, right on a key 100-day moving average, having jumped from 1.1200 to 1.1240 in a flash during the Asian session.
"The euro is being driven by market positioning and risk appetite weakness," says Hardy, particularly with a lot of "nervousness" in the market ahead of Friday's April nonfarm payrolls print.
What is baffling Hardy more is the ongoing dollar weakness in the market.
"This seems to be on the back of a trade balance figure but we had a very positive report in the much more important ISM manufacturing figure," he says. "It's incredible, but the market seems to be taking a glass half-empty approach."
"For the dollar bulls, it is hard to know what the market is thinking at the moment," he says, adding that dollar's weakness only puts into starker light the travails of NZD if it can't draw a line in the sand against the greenback.
Bunds sinking
It was also a tumultuous day in the corporate bonds markets with bunds sliding to 154.50, and the 10-year bund yield at up above 0.5%, the highest since quantitative easing was introduced in Europe in March.
"These were extensive, violent moves," says Michael Boye from the Fixed Income desk in Copenhagen. "It seems to be driven by a repricing of inflation risk in tandem with the stronger euro and low oil prices."
In the peripheral markets, Spanish and Italian yields were heading towards 2%, the highest since November, effectively ending speculation that QE might end.
"It is ironic that we were talking about this two weeks ago," says Boye. "Suddenly from a situation where there did not seem to be a lot of bonds to buy, we now have plenty."
And finally...
It seems appropriate to end today's From the Floor with yet more news from down under given the Antipodean flavour of today's brief.
Woolworths' share price plunged 5% overnight in Australia on the back of job cuts and missed sales targets demonstrating that the staple of every UK high street in the 1970s and 80s may not be able to pick n' mix with the best of them as it once did.