Pivotfarm Daily News Harvest 29th July 2010

Markets in a Flash

·        
Asian equity markets had a
mixed session overnight. The Hang Seng finished flat +0.01% up. The Nikkei 225
was down -0.59%.

·        
European equity markets are
making gains today and are progressively getting higher. This is on the back of
strong European economic data.

·        
Commodities are pushing higher
this morning. Oil and Gold are both trading higher in today’s session while
copper is up over +1%

·        
The EUR is looking strong today
pushing higher against other currencies. This is due to the strong economic
data. The EUR/USD has firmly broken 1.3000 and is nearing 1.3100.

·        
The GBP is looking strong
against the USD as it pushes to new 5 month highs. The GBP/USD is trading
slightly higher than its April highs.

·        
US equity futures are higher
this morning by around +0.5%. This should lead to an increase in the equity
markets at the open.

News Focus

European Data

Data released
today in Europe has reduced fears of a double
dip recession in the Eurozone economy. The data has pushed equity markets
higher and has strengthened the EUR.

European
economic confidence has risen to its highest level in 2 years. The confidence
index is a survey of 130,000 managers and 40,000 consumers. The index was
expected to report a figure around 99, but the figure released today was 101.3.

German
unemployment data showed a reduction in the number of people unemployed in Europe’s largest economy. 
The jobless rate fell from 7.7% to 7.6%, this is a reduction of 20,000
people to 3.21m.

Just Released

0830ET
- Jobless Claims

New Claims - Level

Previous                464 K              Consensus     460 K

Consensus Range  455 K to 500 K   Actual           457K

This week’s
figure has seen the number of people filing for jobless insurance fall to 457K.
This figure has come in better than economist’s consensus of 460k. This
suggests the employment market is better than expected and is bullish for the
economy.

Coming up Today

1030ET – Natural Gas
Report

The weekly report by the Energy Information
Administration provides data on US natural gas stocks. A report showing a drop
in natural gas stocks may signal increasing demand in the economy and see an
increase in the price of the commodity.

Provided by Pivotfarm.com - Support and Resistance Research

Comments

[dvsteenk]

Heard on Bloomberg today that unemployment in Germany has been kept low through increased part-time employment. In other words, those unemployment numbers might be cooked a bit as well.

[dvsteenk]

Incredible how "they" managed to prop it up again, blatantly visible after US markets opened, before setting in the drop of today... Efficient markets? CAC was pushed up 50 points (to 3720), then dropped 70 points. Net result a 20 point drop or -0.5%. Again it looks as if all is still great, no worries... Yet, if the afternoon "reality" had settled in this morning, that would have been nearly a 2% drop. Quite a different feeling that would give, no? 

[Escapeclaws]

Obviously those who predicted when the euro was $1.19 that it was going to parity or worse were wrong. Note to self, never listen to predictions of something going to extremes after it has already had a large move in the same direction.