EUR/USD: Focus on the US Labor Market
The central events last week were the meetings of two regulators, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. Traders were also certainly interested in data from the US labor market, including such an important indicator as the NFP, the number of jobs created outside the US agricultural sector.
As expected, the Fed announced the curtailment of $120 billion quantitative easing (QE) program starting this month. The purchases of treasuries will decrease by $10 billion to $70 billion in November, mortgage bonds – by $5 billion, to $35 billion. The total reduction in the volume of asset repurchase will remain at the same level of $15 billion In December.
Commenting on the results of the last meeting, the head of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said that the time for raising interest rates has not yet come, since the labor market has not fully recovered and, according to forecasts, this will happen by mid-2022. The Fed will be patient until then. At the same time, Powell noted that the pace of reduction of incentives can be adjusted at the beginning of next year both towards acceleration and towards deceleration, depending on economic conditions.
It can be understood from this statement of the head of the FRS that the regulator keeps a path to retreat, and one should not expect an early cut in the ultra-soft monetary policy at the moment. This interpretation pushed the stock indices up again, and Dow Jones, S&P500 and Nasdaq updated their historical highs once again.
(It is worth noting that for the first time, transactions with NASDAQ 100 (Ustec.c) helped one of the traders to become one of the most productive NordFX clients, earning a profit of $38.124 in October).
So, the US Central Bank is ready to make and adjust its decisions depending on the market situation. As for the European Central Bank, unlike the Fed, it believes the markets are wrong. ECB President Christine Lagarde said Oo Wednesday November 03 that the bank’s Governing Council has clearly formulated three conditions for raising interest rates, and that these conditions will not yet be met in 2022.
Investors were not pleased with the macro statistics of the Eurozone either. Composite PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) declined for the third month in a row, and the volume of industrial orders in Germany in September rose by only 1.3%, despite the fact that in August it fell by 8.8%. The growth in the yield of government bonds of the Eurozone countries, caused by their active sale, which reminds the markets of the prospects of the debt crisis, looks alarming as well.
All these factors put significant pressure on the common European currency and led to its fall, as a result of which the EUR/USD pair renewed its October lows.
Focusing on the recovery of the labor market, the head of the FRS outlined the priorities for his organization. Against this background, the dynamics of NFP (Non-Farm Payroll) becomes even more important. This US non-farm employment report is traditionally released on the first Friday of the month, this time November 05. According to its data, the number of new jobs in October was 531K (with the forecast of 425K and the previous value of 312K). In addition, the unemployment rate fell to 4.6% from 4.8% in September. Stock indices soared even higher against this background. As for the EUR/USD pair, after a correction, it completed the weekly session at 1.1567.
Naturally, most indicators on D1 face south. These are 100% among the trend indicators. The same could be said about oscillators. However, 10% of them have taken a neutral position, 10% are in the oversold zone and another 10% turned to the north at the very end of the week.
As for the experts, 25% vote for the growth of the pair, the same number is for its fall, and 50% is for the sideways movement. Support levels are 1.1535, 1.1500, 1.1485, 1.1425 and 1.1250. Resistance levels are 1.1575, 1.1615, 1.1665, 1.1715, 1.1800, 1.1910.
As for the upcoming release of macroeconomic statistics, data on the state of the consumer markets in Germany and the United States will be released on Wednesday, November 10, and the preliminary consumer confidence index of the University of Michigan will be announced on Friday, November 12. This index is an indicator of the US consumers’ confidence in economic growth and assesses their willingness to spend money.
GBP/USD: Shock from the Bank of England
The threat of stagflation, combining weak GDP growth and high inflation, is very dangerous for the British economy, which is still under pressure from the Brexit effects. According to forecasts of experts from the Bank of England, the annual inflation rate will accelerate to about 5% by April 2022 and will decrease to the target level of 2% as late as by the end of 2022. These are very high rates, and a few days before the meeting of the Bank of England, its head Andrew Bailey said that with such indicators, it may be necessary to act and raise interest rates more quickly than originally planned. As a result, the markets believed that the regulator would raise the key rate in November and… were deceived in their expectations.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England voted at its meeting on Thursday November 04 by seven votes to two to keep the interest rate at the previous level of 0.1%, and by six votes to three to keep the volume of asset purchases at £ 895 billion. Disappointed investors responded to the regulator with the collapse of the pound. The GBP/USD pair reached a local low, falling 270 points to 1.3425. The last chord of the week sounded at 1.3490.
Andrew Bailey stated in response to criticism that he misled investors, that “we never promised a November rate hike” and that “it is not my job to manage the markets.” Sylvana Tenreiro, an external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, who believes that the Central Bank should not react to short-term shock situations and the problem of supply of goods will become less acute next year, spoke soothingly. The opposite position was taken by Deputy Head of the Bank Dave Ramsden, who said that he voted for a rate increase, as the shortage of labor is becoming more and more noticeable.
As some analysts note, there are currently growing expectations that London will decide to apply Article 16 of the EU Leaving Agreement. It is possible within the framework of this article for one of the parties to suspend part of the Brexit transaction if its further execution creates serious economic or other difficulties. That said, the EU’s response could be more radical than the UK government expects. And this situation has and will continue to exert additional pressure on the pound.
The preliminary data on the UK GDP for the Q3 will be released on Thursday, November 11. They may affect market sentiment along with macro statistics from the US. In the meantime, analysts’ opinion is as follows: 55% of experts bet on bears to win, 35%, along with graphical analysis on D1, support bulls, and the remaining 10% have taken a neutral position.
Among the oscillators on D1, 75% is colored red, 25% indicates that the pair is oversold. Trend indicators are 100% red. Support levels are 1.3470, 1.3420, 1.3380, 1.3200, the target of the bears is 1.3135. The resistance levels and targets of the bulls are 1.3510, 1.3570, 1.3610, 1.3735, 1.3835.
USD/JPY: Sideways Trend Again
The charts of the last three weeks showed that the upward momentum of the USD/JPY pair has dried up, and it has moved to its favorite activity: the sideways trend, limited by the range of 113.40-114.40. The yen rose on the back of the 10-year Treasury yield decline to 1.53% and continued to strengthen at the end of the working week, finishing at the lower boundary of this channel.
The current situation is clearly confirmed by the spread of expert opinions and indicator readings. Among analysts, 50% expect the pair to return to the upper border of the 113.40-114.40 channel, 25% to move along the 113.00 Pivot Point, and 25% to fall to the 112.00 area. It should be noted that, when moving from weekly to monthly forecast, the number of supporters of the latter increases to 50%.
There is a complete discordance among the oscillators on D1: 35% look north, 40% south, 15% give oversold signals and the remaining 10% turn neutral grey. There is a neutrality among the trend indicators: 50% side with the green ones, the other 50% side with the red ones. The resistance levels are 113.70, 114.40, 114.70 and 115.50, the long-term target of the bulls is the December 2016 high of 118.65. The nearest support level is 113.25, further targets are 112.00 and 111.65.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES: 9 Pages That Changed the World
It was 13 years ago, on October 31, 2008, that a person or a group of people known as Satoshi Nakamoto published the bitcoin white paper. The nine-page technical document described how the peer-to-peer payment system worked that would revolutionize the financial technology world. The bitcoin network was launched in January 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared in April 2011, and the public was never able to find out who wrote these 9 pages, which marked the beginning of a multi-billion-dollar industry. More precisely, multi-trillion, since the total crypto market capitalization reached a new all-time high last week, exceeding $2.7 trillion.
But the share of bitcoin has decreased again: its dominance index fell over the week from 44.15% to 42.84%. The historical record of $ 66,925, set by bitcoin on October 20, has not yet been broken. The bulls did try to update this result on Tuesday November 02, but having reached the $64,260 high, the BTC/USD pair reversed and rolled back to $60,000. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is still in the Greed zone at 73 points (70 weeks ago).
While the main cryptocurrency is marking time, the attention of many investors has turned to altcoins. Ripple rose in price (XRP/USD), and the ETH/USD pair updated its all-time high once again, reaching $4.657 on Wednesday November 03.
Among the top altcoins, Ethereum attracts with its long history and use in many projects. The main driver of its growth in recent months has been the burning of coins for transactions on the network and the fact that the rate of their burning outstrips the rate of their production. However, after the activation of the London hard fork and the latest Ethereum 2.0 Altair update, commissions on the network have almost doubled, but the developers promise to solve this problem.
The past week is the sixth in a row since the beginning of the rise in the rate of Ethereum, which has added 75% since September 21. This token appears now to be targeting the $5,000 level. And this is not a limit. So a reputable cryptanalyst known as CryptosRUs predicts that ETH will soon reach $10,000. Moreover, he is confident that it is almost the last opportunity now to purchase this altcoin at a price below this mark. The forecast of Goldman Sachs specialists, who do not exclude that the ETH/USD pair may rise to $8,000 by the end of the year, is somewhere in the middle.
Of course, it would be unfair to say that the market has completely forgotten about bitcoin. Many investors and experts still single out this cryptocurrency. Whales added 142,000 BTC to their wallets in the last week of October alone, according to Chainalysis.
“Bitcoin is mathematics, mathematical purity” that allows it to maintain a level of predictability. Therefore, it outperforms the US dollar. This was stated by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance. In his opinion, regulators can create new paper notes on their whim, and therefore it is difficult to predict inflation of fiat money.
The author of the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, writer and investor Robert Kiyosaki, like Steve Wozniak, has criticized the administration of President Joe Biden and has declared his distrust the US federal government. He believes that the authorities “rip off people”, promote inflation and do not try to reduce it. Get ready for an economic collapse and a new depression. Be smart. Buy gold, silver and bitcoin,” Kiyosaki urged. “I love bitcoin because I don’t trust the Fed, Treasury, and Wall Street.”
Chinese crypto analyst Willie Woo said in an interview with Bitcoin Fundamentals that the current “bullish” growth cycle for bitcoin is very different from previous similar periods. Woo noted that the latest wave of BTC accumulation began at the end of last year, when institutional investors began to enter the crypto market, aiming at the long-term accumulation of digital assets. This factor, in his opinion, indicates that the current growth cycle will be longer, will last another six months or a year, and the price of bitcoin during this period will exceed $100,000.
The forecast of analysts at JPMorgan Chase looks much more modest. Cryptocurrencies can continue to grow, but are unlikely to be stable, so they cannot be recommended as a key asset, JPMorgan says. As for bitcoin, its fair value is estimated by JPMorgan Chase analysts at $35,000. They came to such an assessment based on a comparison with gold, noting that the volatility of the cryptocurrency is about 4 times higher than that of the precious metal. However, if BTC’s volatility is halved, the $73,000 target will “look reasonable.”
PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel doubts as well that now is the right time to buy BTC. “You know, bitcoin is already worth $60,000 and I’m not sure it should be bought aggressively. But, of course, this tells us that we are in a crisis moment,” Bloomberg quoted him as saying. At the same time, Thiel expressed regret once again that he had not invested more money in the first cryptocurrency when its price was significantly lower.
