Yesterday’s Market Wrap
Yesterday markets were quite again, continuing the price action from Monday, with risk sentiment remaining mostly positive throughout the day, although stock markets ended up slightly lower. Risk currencies such as commodity dollars and EUR/USD continued to grind higher, although buyers didn’t seem too confident and we saw a few retreats.
The ECB continues to make hawkish remarks, with ECB’s Muller saying that it is still possible to hike interest rates further. The main data points were the Tokyo core CPI (consumer price index) report which posted a decent slowdown from 3.1% to 2.7% in February and the US Conference Board consumer confidence indicator, which showed an improvement as the banking crisis heads toward an end.
Today’s Market Expectations
Today started with the CPI consumer inflation numbers from Australia, which showed a slowdown in February from the 7.4% we saw in January. In the European session there is only some light data releases from the UK without much effect on the GBP, while in the US session we have the pending home sales which are expected to show a 2.9% decline after the decent 8.1% jump previously.
Yesterday the volatility was low again, but it was enough to present us with some decent trading opportunities. We opened 6 trades in total, four of which reached the take profit target, while the remaining two closed in a loss, after an unexpected jump in risk currencies overnight.
Playing Both Sides in GOLD
Gold failed to holds above $2,000 again last week and the price retreated lower eventually, falling below all moving averages on the H1 chart. Yesterday XAU continued to slip lower after the failure at the 200 SMA (purple) on the first test and we decided to open a sell Gold signal which slowed in profit. Then we reversed to buy and closed another Gold signal in profit as the price moved above the 100 SMA.
XAU/USD – 60 minute chart
Buying the Retreat in WTI
US Oil – 15 minute chart
Cryptocurrency Update
Cryptocurrencies retreated lower on Monday on the lawsuit from CFTC against Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, which is another battle of the war on cryptos. Digicoins were displaying buying pressure since the beginning of the year and were pushing higher until the middle of this month, but lost the bullish momentum and were slow to make new highs after that.
BITCOIN Holding Above Support
Bitcoin has formed a support zone around $26,600 after retreating off the highs above $28,000. BTC couldn’t hold above that level and on Monday we saw a sudden tumble to $26,600s where the decline stalled. But buyers came back but they haven’t been able to resume the bullish momentum yet.
BTC/USD – 15 minute chart
ETHEREUM Holds Above $1,70
ETH/USD – 240 minute chart
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