Forex Major Currencies Outlook (March 14, 2013)

The retail sales figure for February came in at 1.1%, better than the estimated 0.5% uptick, while the core version posted a 1.0% increase for the month. For today, the U.S. will print its PPI and initial jobless claims, both of which could once more boost the U.S. dollar if the actual data comes in strong.

EUR: Neutral

There aren’t a lot of catalysts from the euro zone these days as EUR/USD continues to trade carefully below the 1.3000 area. For now, euro pairs are acting sensitive to their counter currencies’ events. In particular, EUR/USD sold off when strong U.S. retail sales boosted the dollar while EUR/JPY edged higher on uncertainty in Japan.

GBP: Bearish

GBP/USD seems to have found resistance close to 1.5000 during yesterday’s trading as strong U.S. retail sales prevented the pair from heading any higher. There are no major reports from the U.K. today but the downbeat outlook for the U.K. and expectations of further BOE easing could continue to weigh the pound down.

AUD: Bullish

The Australian economy just printed a very strong jobs report for February as the economy added 71.5K jobs during the quarter and kept the jobless rate steady at 5.4% instead of rising to 5.5%. This suggests that the jobs sector is making a strong rebound and doesn’t need further stimulus from the RBA. On top of that, the previous month’s figure enjoyed an upward revision from 10.4K to 13.1K

NZD: Bearish

The Kiwi sold off aggressively after the RBNZ delivered its monetary policy statement during today’s Tokyo session. The central bank did keep rates on hold at 2.50% as expected but Wheeler noted the downturn in domestic economic activity. He blamed the worsening drought conditions and the strength of the New Zealand dollar for this slowdown, citing that the Kiwi is overvalued by 10-15%.

By Kate Curtis from Trader's Way