Forexlive European FX News 3 May 2018 -Promised much, but delivered little in quiet session

European session 3 May 2018

UK Lawmaker Committee : Concerns over Asda – Sainsbury merger

EUR/USD still muted despite bad inflation data: Here is one reason why

USD/CAD: Shorts good to go post FOMC

Weak inflation print, but EUR/USD muted so far

Eurozone March PPI figures, 2.1% vs 2.1% expected

Eurozone April preliminary CPI figures, 1.2% vs 1.3% expected

Brexit Bulldog stating the obvious: when someone has a worse job than you

FTSE 100 rises to session high on weaker than expected PMI

UK April services and composite PMI  52.8 vs 53.5 expected

Dollar weakening after FOMC

Norway Central Bank keeps key rate unchanged at 0.50%

Pound finding some love ahead of Services PMI.

EUR/USD inches above 1.2000 as dollar weakens further in the session

ECB’s Constancio says that Eurozone is wasting benefits of currency union

Summer time and the living is easy : at least that’s what the BOE and ECB hope

ECB’s Hansson says he doesn’t see a big future for cryptocurrencies

UN Chief Antonio Guterres : North Korea on track for denuclearisation

US-China trade talks have just begun on the day

ECB’s Villeroy: Slower French Q1 growth is not a surprise

EUR/USD price between two large options waiting eurozone CPI

ECB’s Hansson says latest Euro-area developments are positive

European equities a little lower to start the day

Danske says effects from Easter to become a drag on Eurozone CPI reading later today

USD/JPY back lower again as move towards 110.00 stalls

Eurostoxx futures -0.1% in early European trading

Pound seeing a little temporary relief as EUR/GBP falls 

EU raises 2018 Spain growth forecast to 2.9% – report

Cable rises above 1.3600 as dollar remains sluggish ahead of European trading

ECB and BOE to ‘study’ Brexit threats to financial services: don’t expect a fix, (but they might come up with one)

Economic data coming up in the European session

FX option expiries for the 1400 GMT cut – 3 May 2018

Market data 

• FTSE flat at 7536
• Gold up 0.5% at 1311.83
• WTI flat at 67.92
• Bitcoin up 0.87% at 9230

It was a session post FOMC and the market was largely undecided what to make of the Fed’s statement. The Fed had moved to a slightly more dovish stance and the recent bullish march of the dollar has ceased, for now.

The UK services PMI release, the last major release of the three for the UK this week,  was a slight miss. GBP/USD sold off a few points but kept to the recent intraday ranges. It was a similar story after the weaker than expected eurozone inflation data. The miss was substantial, but the reaction was underwhelming. General market chatter is that Easter fell at an awkward time for the collection of data , so the results were skewed. That’s the general view and most people are taking that as a reason to see through the bad data. EUR/USD pretty much sat, stuck , between two large expiries for most of the session, yawn.

In other news USD/JPY threatened a larger movie lower, and is moving towards 109.40 as I type with more looking likely in the next session.

There was more talk of Brexit customs deals between the UK and EU, but nothing that really grabbed the attention. This kind of chat was expected – it is difficult, it is hard, but we will sort it out. They will too, it’s the Irish Border problem which is harder.