18th January 2012 - Daily market analysis by Alistair Cotton

Alistair Cotton is a Corporate Dealer at Currencies Direct UK, lends us his expertise on a daily basis. Foreign Exchange (FX) Market analysis is a daily market overview and commentary.

Short squeeze drags the Euro Higher

The recent rally in the Euro is very surprising given the lack of any positive or even specific Euro related news over the past couple of days. Market sentiment about the single currency remains low (after a temporary blip last week) because a Greek default is looming ever larger and European policy makers are still arguing over the rules that they hope will make the Euro-zone stronger moving forward. In fact short positions (betting that the Euro will fall in value) hit record highs over the past couple of weeks, which suggests there recent rally is more about shorts covering their positions, leading to the price of the Euro rising forcing other shorts to cover, commonly known as a short squeeze. If, as is likely, this explains the recent uptick in the Euro we can expect Euro selling to resume once the squeeze runs out of steam. Data for the Euro-zone for the rest of the week is extremely light, with the ECB monthly report showing how much the ECB is lending to stricken banks is due Thursday along with French and Spanish bond auctions. Both auctions will be closely watched in light of the S&P downgrades on Friday.

Sterling has been fairly steady in the early part of the week, but that might change this morning with jobless claims for December due at 9.30. The consensus is for a 7K rise but there is scope for a larger number because of the deteriorating economic picture and so a bigger movement in the pound when the data is released. UK Retail sales are the only release of note for the rest of the week but worth noting because they report over key Christmas period for the retailers and will probably give a good idea to the market if the UK economy is heading for (or is already in) another recession.

The US bank holiday on Monday has meant the USD has also been fairly quiet so far this week, but Thursday and Friday sees a large amount of US data including the CPI figure, which should hopefully give the market an end of week shot of much needed direction in an otherwise rudderless few days.

Report by Alistair Cotton

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