Dollar slid to its new historical bottom rate against euro hitting 1.4967 on EUR/USD. Missing the marvelous 1.5000 pint by about 30 pips, EUR/USD retraced by 150 points back as the Forex traders consolidated their profits on the rally. Another week without any supporting for dollar may probably break this resistance.
Yesterday Canadian dollar reached its monthly minimum levels after the macroeconomic statistics were released by Canada’s National Statistics Agency. September 2007 retails sales fell by 0.2 percents compared to previous month. USD/CAD traded at 0.9923 on Forex as the data was released.
Minutes of the last (7 and 8 November) Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee were released today, showing the vision for the U.K. economy by the committee members. As the interest rates decision was known by the traders already - BoE left rates unchanged at 5.75%, the major interest was drawn to the exact voting details.
Federal Reserve’s FOMC published its first meeting minutes to include the 3-year projections of the committee members regarding the GDP growth, consumer prices inflation and unemployment rate. While the average projection expectations didn’t differ greatly (except for the year 2008) from this year’s results, the uncertainty of the inflation projections spoke for itself - Fed is unsure of the impact the interest rates manipulations will have on the consumer prices growth.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke on Fed’s communications at Annual Monetary Conference today. In contrast to his predecessors that praised a secretive atmosphere of FOMC’s decisions, Bernanke said that transparency and more detailed information will help markets to understands monetary policy better. In this context he announced about a new communications strategy of the Federal Reserve.
Bank of Japan decided to leave its monetary unchanged on today’s meeting upon releasing its monthly statement on the Japanese economic development. BoJ also left no signs of possible interest rates hike in the near future, leaving carry traders with the opportunity to continue using yen as the selling currency.