Today is the NFP which as always will be in focus, and today especially as the expectation is that the FED will raise the interest rate in 2 weeks. Only a very bad NFP is expected to be able to derail that, so anything that comes in above 125K is expected to be good enough, even if the expectation is for 165K.
Something else that will be on the mind of a lot of traders is the Italian referendum which will take place on Sunday, and on the same day also the Austrian elections. Could this shake up European unity further, or will the results reassure politicians across Europe?
Currencies
EUR/USD – will be very much in focus today and early next week. Not only because of the NFP today, but also due to the Italian referendum and the Austrian elections. These could prove to create more threats to the stability of the EU, depending on the results. We are trading at a 2 week high at the moment
USD/JPY – has moved down, as also the USD weakened, but as mentioned yesterday, the trend of the last weeks has been that any downwards move is followed by another jump up. Will the NFP cause this, or will it make the USD weaken further?
GBP/USD – moved up sharply and broke above the resistance which was in place in recent days around the 1.25 level, as the EU could be willing to find ways for the UK to be able to access the internal market. This is a change of earlier comments, which were much tougher on the UK, and if true, would be very good for the UK economy.
USD/CAD – dropped sharply to the support around the 1.3289 level as the CAD continued to benefit from the higher oil price and also the weakening USD.
Indices
Dollar Index – has moved down again as we noted yesterday that the USD is running out of steam. We are headed towards the first support at the Fibonacci level.
S&P 500 – moved down due to a drop in the technology sector which weighted more that the gains in the energy and financial sector. As mentioned earlier this week, if we see a correction, the first test will be at the familiar 2167 level, which is also the first Fibonacci retracement level.
XLF – has risen over 15% since Donald Trump was elected president.
Commodities
Gold – the strong US data was able to shortly strengthen the USD and in turn cause gold to drop lower and test the next support level. Over the last weeks we have seen that the support levels are not holding for long, but with the USD apparently running out of steam it could be different this time, unless we get a very strong NFP.
Oil – continued to move up on the backdrop of the OPEC-agreement, but it was stopped at the resistance and has failed to far to mark a new high of the year. A more in depth analysis can be found here.