The initial claims did not disappoint, as they showed continued improvement falling back to only 366.000 in the week ended March 13. But no dollar strengthening ensued and the dollar bulls may have grown somewhat tired.
Also the euro was feeling better since noon, as also EUR/JPY was climbing back, after a strong support, namely the year low, held up nicely (see USD/JPY for our view on this move!). The euro recouped across the board and this filtered through in EUR/USD.
At approximately that time a news flash was issued that a suspect package had been found on the eurostar train rail Paris-London, so this was seen hurting the dollar at that time.
The dollar couldn't find any support after that in leading indicators or a weaker Philly Fed index to counter the mood. Even as in the evening the news came that the No2 Al Qaeda leader, Al
Zawahari, was probably surrounded by Pakistani forces, the dollar could not gain. This could be a breakthrough and a confirmed capture could give the dollar some comeback power, although we are surprised the rumours so far have not helped one smithen.
We have taken positions on long dollar, as we looked for clear upswings in EUR/USD. The reason (terror) for the upswing is of course unexpected, but maybe today tension could become somewhat relieved on the terror front. Anyway, should the 1.2460 zone resistance be broken, we would take stop-loss.
Technically, EUR/USD is still in neutral territory, but rapidly approaching overbought conditions.
ČSOB Investment Research