North American Summary and Highlights 28 Feb

North American session

In a very quiet session the USD saw marginal losses, mainly versus the EUR, with EUR/USD peaking just below 1.0850. EUR/GBP also saw marginal gains. 

USD slippage may have been encouraged by US data, with Q4 GDP revised down to 3.2% from 3.3% and January’s advance goods trade deficit increasing to $90.2bn from $87.9bn. However the GDOP revision was more than fully due to inventories with domestic demand revised higher, as was the core PCE price index, to 2.1% from 2.0%. Fed speakers Collins, Bostic and Williams all suggested rates were likely to fall later this year but the Fed needed to see more data before acting. 

European morning session

The USD was generally slightly firmer through the European morning. EUR/USD briefly dipped below 1.08 before bouncing to 1.0815, down around 10 pips from opening levels. USD/JPY was up just around 5 pips to 150.65, while the AUD and NZD stayed soft after overnight weakness, losing around 20 pips each. The NOK was a little softer as well, with EURNOK up 2 figures to 11.45, and EUR/SEK also gained slightly to 11.20. The CHF held its own against the USD, with EUR/CHF dropping around 15 pips to 0.9515.

There wasn’t a great deal of significant news in the session. There were several Swedish releases, but none had a major impact, with the economic tendency survey edging marginally lower in February after a strong January recovery.  The January trade balance did show a big rise, but due to weak imports rather than strong exports. 

The European Commission survey was a little on the weak side, with declines in both industrial and services sentiment and the business and consumer survey index, but consumer confidence rose slightly and the business climate index was unchanged. EUR/USD had dipped below 108 ahead of the data but recovered afterwards.