London Session

21.11.08 3:09 PM

London Session

Risk appetite slightly came back to the fore in London trading as speculation that a major US bank could be looking to sell itself and a new proposal for a prepackaged bankruptcy for the US automakers led overseas stocks higher.  Asian marts rebounded more than 2% while European bourses were up just modestly.  US equities look like the best of the bunch, with futures pointing to an open near 3% up.

 

The price action in FX was on the mild side and mostly saw the buck lower.  EUR/USD jumped about 60 points towards 1.2580/90 just ahead of the NY open.  USD/JPY came off nearly -40 points despite the flight to risk taking, as the weakness in the greenback outweighed yen selling.  EUR/JPY was broadly unchanged and remained near 119.00/10 after surging in the Asia session.

 

Cable was a major beneficiary of renewed risk appetite as GBP/USD soared more than 150 points into the 1.4980/90 zone.  Nonetheless the focus remains lower here while below the 1.50 mark.  Oil pulled back more than $3 from overnight highs and remains just above $50/bbl.  This helped USD/CAD make up some of the ground lost in the earlier session and the pair rallied about 30 points to the 1.2790 area.

 

Upcoming Economic Data Releases (NY Session)   Prior   Estimate

11/21/2008 13:15 GMT GE Germany's Steinbrueck Speaks at Conference in Berlin

11/21/2008 13:15 GMT US Fed's Lacker Speaks on Financial Conditions in Maryland

11/21/2008 17:15 GMT US Fed's Plosser Speaks About Financial Crisis in Philadelphia

Written by:  GAIN Capital Group