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British Pound at 26-year Highs, but Forex Market to See Little Volatility in Week Ahead

Monday, 23 July 2007 18:28:44 GMT  |  David Rodriguez, Currency Analyst

The British Pound set fresh multi-decade highs against the downtrodden greenback, with overall momentum and reported technical difficulties allowing the GBPUSD through 2.0600 on the day’s trade. The dollar was otherwise rangebound against major foreign counterparts; an exactly empty calendar forced few volatile moves across USD-denominated pairs.

The Euro fell for the first day in five, moving to $1.3800 through time of writing. British Pound bulls nonetheless sent Cable to 26-year highs of $2.0602 before a modest pullback saw the Cross-Atlantic currency pair move to $2.0576. Small declines in the Japanese Yen managed to offset some of the dollar’s declines, with the USDJPY up 0.12 points to ¥121.33 in later New York price action.

Global economic event risk was almost nonexistent through London and New York sessions, leaving markets to trade off of general sentiment and momentum. A pronounced rebound in US equity markets and a subsequent gain in bond yields produced a small dollar bid, but this has been hardly enough to break the overall dollar-selling trend. Indeed, our own technical analyst Jamie Saettele highlights a bearish outlook on the greenback in the EURUSD and USDJPY. (See here for more) A largely empty economic calendar leaves little foreseeable volatility through the coming week of trade, with no new significant economic data out of the US economy until Wednesday’s Existing Home Sales report. All else remaining equal, it seems likely that forex markets will remain relatively rangebound ahead of later foreseeable event risk. 

Domestic equity markets showed a modest rebound after Friday’s triple-digit losses, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average 78 points improved to 13,929.52 at time of writing. The popular US stock index had previously seen as much as a 121 point gain ahead of later consolidation, but it seems as though markets are still spooked following Friday’s sharp sell-off. Other majors were likewise off of their intraday peaks, with the NASDAQ Composite up a mere 6 points to 2694, while the S&P 500 added 6.45 to 1,540.55.

The small bounce in equities coincided with a similar retracement in bond prices, with the 10-year note down 1/16 points to 95 and 15/32. Yields added a relatively minor 1 basis point to 4.96 percent.

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