European Market Update

European Market Update

The European session began taking note of the sentiments from various equity markets and provided a sense of risk aversion in the early part of the session. Weaker than expected earnings from Apple and Amazon set the tone for Asia helped the USD and JPY currencies to gains against their European counterparts. The financial press was also quite plentiful in various concerns over the European periphery (Note pls refer to the Notes/Observations section above). Soothing comments from a German Parliamentary member that Germany sought an extension of the Greece program helped to restore some calm in markets. The EUR/USD tested a 3-month uptrend line at the 1.2910 area before consolidating its losses. The pair was now little changed at 1.2940 as the NY morning approached.

The USD/JPY moved below the 80 handle on profit-taking after Japan did confirm the cabinet approval of a ¥750B stimulus package.