Summary:

  • Bitcoin remains under pressure

  • USD hopes to receive support from inflation figures

  • ECB minutes to take the stage in the early afternoon

With a few important prints scheduled for release today Thursday paints a picture of quite interesting day on the markets. Investors await protocol from the latest ECB meeting. EURUSD is trading relatively flat. Oil prices hold firm near 3-year highs after receiving support from yesterday’s DOE report. AUD remains strongest currency in the G10 basket.

All cryptocurrency geeks have heavily focused on South Korea recently as it’s ushered in the current pullback. Consequently the Bitcoin price lost momentum and slid roughly $4,000 from a peak. From a technical point of view it does not seem to be supportive of buyers but with digital currencies you never know when the price decides to make an abrupt turnaround.

The US dollar is really fighting an uphill battle. Just when it looked as if it was on a tear, it was hit by rumour on China considering limiting its exposure to the US bonds. In a short term USD bulls clearly need an impulse and they will be looking for the data on inflation this Friday.

The European equity markets ended Wednesday’s trading widely lower following a surge in global bond yields undermined by the report released by Bloomberg claiming that China would stop or even halt buying of the US treasuries.

The US indices ended the day slightly lower on the back of a surge seen in the domestic bond yields. Their Asian counterparts followed this pattern more or less but losses have not been substantial thus far. As far as the FX is concerned the Australian dollar deserves the most attention as it’s the strongest currency in the G10 basket in the aftermath of the retail sales release.

In today’s economic calendar we still have few important releases ahead of us. First and probably the most significant for the markets is publication of the ECB minutes in the early afternoon. Later on we will get to know what US PPI is. In the evening data concerning New Zealand’s building permits may spur increased volatility on the Antipodean currency.