The euro is not oversold from a daily perspective but it is approaching some solid support levels that could provide quality buying opportunities.

On Wednesday, the euro’s nearly 300 pip fall against the U.S. dollar was the largest one-day fall since September of 2008. That’s worse than any single day during the European debt crisis. Without doubt, we see the euro moving lower from here in the medium term. In the short-term, however, we are nearing uptrend support and support from the June low of 1.2737.

We could see a further slide close to support on Friday, especially if U.S. retail sales disappoint. But looking to next week, there is very little on the data docket to spook the broad market. To us, that skews the risks toward a mild recovery trade. With that in mind, we would look for opportunities to buy the euro at below 1.28 with the expectations that we will see a re-test of 1.30 in the week ahead. If the euro does return to 1.30 we will be quick to take profits and initiate short positions for an eventual fall to new lows.

The U.S. dollar has become the dog of the foreign exchange market and we expect the EUR/USD to continue rallying after a short pullback. The USD eked out only small gains against only the CAD and AUD on Thursday and experienced substantial declines against EUR, GBP and JPY. The market is beginning to grab hold of a theme that the U.S. economy will underperform expectations. Although we have seen a slight rebound from the dollar early on Friday, the overarching theme remains.

The trigger for the sudden surge in USD selling was Wednesday’s minutes of the June 22-23 meeting. In them, the Fed lowered growth forecasts and said the U.S. economy may not fully recover for 5-6 years from the Great Recession of 2007-09. Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, who is usually optimistic, even allowed that the U.S. will recover “perhaps at a pace that is less robust than has been typical of past recoveries.” Financial regulation reform, which passed on Thursday, is also making the U.S. a less competitive hub of global finance.

At the same time, the focus is shifting away from Europe. A recent sovereign downgrade of Portugal by Moody’s elicited hardly a blip in the forex market. On Thursday a successful Spanish bond sale further reinforced that a euro breakup and sovereign defaults are no longer a pressing concern.

The huge rally in EUR/USD yesterday pushed the euro above the 100-day and 100-month moving averages and points to a continued recovery in the euro. Expect the consolidation that has begun in Asia to continue as the week comes to a close. The RSI isn’t overbought and there is plenty of technical fuel for a rally but the odds favour intraday shorts on Friday.

We have been advocating short positions in USD/JPY all the way down but looking at today’s chart it’s clear that some caution is warranted. The pair is stabilizing and oversold conditions point to a rebound.

Today’s daily candle forms a bullish hammer reversal pattern. It also forms a double-bottom at 86.96, which was also the low last Wednesday. Further strengthening the case are a multitude of oversold signals, including the RSI, which is just a shade above 30.

A bullish retacement phase would be confirmed by a rally above resistance at 88.05 – 88.15. A reasonable retracement would be back up to 89.25. On the other hand, if we are unable to rally above resistance at 88.05 in the next day or two, we would expect a swift fall toward 0.8450.

We may be seeing a paradigm shift in the forex market. Bad news in the U.S. is no longer translating into a broad risk trade.

In the past, bad news in the U.S. would lead to a ‘risk off’ trade where the JPY was the main beneficiary but the USD also rallied against EUR and the commodity bloc. Over the past three days we have seen risk aversion coming from China and bad news in the U.S. Instead of seeing EUR/USD strength, we are seeing weakness.

Remeber that currencies are relative. Over the past 8 months, the euro has slumped based on euro-centric worries. The thinking was that European economic growth would lag U.S. growth by a large margin.

The outlook hasn’t improved for Europe but it is now darkening for the U.S. and elsewhere. Relatively, that’s a good thing for the euro.

If this is a paradigm shift, it’s major. It’s would be reminiscent of the USD during the financial crisis. Initially, the USD was falling to record lows as it appeared the crisis was limited to just the U.S. housing market. Later, when it became clear that the U.S. housing crisis was going to send the worldwide economy into recession, the USD rallied. This wasn’t good news for the USD, rather, it was relatively good news.

We are not yet saying there has been a paradigm shift but we are on the lookout. The caveat is that we are at the start of a new month and new quarter. Trading patterns often get skewed by flows. We won’t get a real idea of what is happening until July 6, when the U.S. returns from holiday.

Today’s price action was the signal we were looking for to mark the top in EUR/USD. We had a blowout to the upside that has aggressively reversed.

The main news of the day is that China will allow the yuan to appreciate against the USD. Analysts are scrambling to interpret the news and the market has been equally undecided. The U.S. dollar has been a main beneficiary on sentiment that U.S. manufacturing will be more competitive. Initially, the stock market liked the news but a stronger yuan probably means slower worldwide economic growth so that sentiment appears to have taken over.

The idea that China is curbing growth and inflation is weighing on the EUR. There is also a feeling that the entire up-move in EUR/USD was fuelled by short covering. CFTC data released late Friday shows a massive contraction in EUR net shorts so there is evidence that the slump has been little more than position squaring.

The daily chart now shows a downside reversal. We also see an inverted hammer pattern. Confirming the downside is the resistance at the top Bollinger Band, the RSI and the 50-day moving average.

Yesterday we talked about cutting gold long and waiting for better levels to buy. What happened? Gold fell 1%. We still look for more attractive levels and will be buying at $1200 and continuing to evaluate any moves to the upside.

Today, we are struggling to find a clear trend to latch on to. The charts are not sending a great deal of clear buy or sell signals. Nowhere is this more clear than in USD/CAD.

We don’t see anything here that is sending a clear, short-term signal. We know that the long-term trend is down but we are seeing some sideways indications lately and we’re worried about another push to 1.08.

USD/CAD probed the downside today but we had a sound rejection well above support at 1.0333. That move has got us thinking about entering into a long position but we don’t see the right risk/reward ratio. We could see a track up to 1.0580 or 1.0600 but on the downside we want to see 1.0333 broken before we get bearish.

Looking at other charts, it’s similar. There is not a great deal of momentum anywhere. We take that as a signal that the market is unsure. Traders are looking for clear reasons to buy and sell.

In the day ahead we have the ECB and BOE interest rate decisions. That could be a catalyst. Our bias is that risk aversion is on the way up. Stock markets were set up for a nice move higher today but wilted. We will wait for clearer signals.

Dollar-yen has been a frustrating pair to trade recently. It can’t seem to find any strong direction. Just when it looks like it’s going to rally or plunge through support, it heads in the other direction. In essence, we have been trading between 89 and 95 since the start of the New Year.

In the longer-term, we expect the pair to eventually trend lower but at the moment, the trend is clearly sideways. In a sideways market, sometimes there are opportunities to put on a low risk trade that takes advantage of a short-term trend. That’s exactly what we see right now in USD/JPY.

This pair sold off on Friday from 93 to 91 but it has rebounded and consolidated in quiet trading today. This is a classic fibonacci retracement. The high earlier of 92.07 is precisely in “The Box” which is the zone between the 50% and 61.8% retracement. We think the spot rate, at 91.64 presents an excellent value on the short side.

Stochasics are showing an overbought signal on the daily and hourly charts with both in the process of rolling over. From a risk management perspective, the trade also presents good value. A stop at 92.15 is a 50 pip risk while on the downside, there is no significant support until 90.54.

First, we would like to update yesterday’s post. We noted that USD/JPY was gearing up for a big move and that is exactly what happened. We were cautious on the early move (especially since we had a slight bias to the downside) but once the news that Japan’s Prime Minister quitting hit, we knew which way this pair was heading. His replacement will likely be Fiannce Minister Naoto Kan, who has been quoted as saying he prefers a weaker yen. It seems as though the technicals and fundamentals are aligning for this trade. A strong U.S. non-farm payrolls report on Friday will likely lead to another leg higher.

The U.S. dollar has been strong today but it has been badly outpaced by it’s northern neighbour as Canada’s loonie has led the forex market. If we get a daily close below 1.0414 we see it as a bearish signal.

The Bank of Canada hiked interest rates on Tuesday but didn’t commit to further rate hikes and we saw a disappointment trade combined with a risk averse environment that left a negative technical picture. We were thinking about entering longs but today’s impressive rally in CAD has taken us aback.

We are now back below the key 200-day moving average. The pair is about to hit some significant technical support at the 100dma (1.0330) followed by trendline support and the old range bottom of 1.0205.

Still, we find it very hard to be long USD/CAD after today’s price action. We caution against agressive shorts because today’s move seems so out of the ordinary. A close above 1.0414 and we might wade into a long position with a very tight stop. If we close below that level we start looking for ways to short the pair.

No one is talking about USD/JPY because nothing much as happened in the pair over the past two weeks. What we see is a pair that is ready to make a big move.

For the past week USD/JPY has been locked in a 200 pip range between 90 and 92. The past three sessions have traced out doji stars and the week earlier also displayed a series of indecisive patterns.

It’s time for the market to make a decision on USD/JPY. We believe the trade is to buy on a break above 91.87 and sell on a fall below 89.91 but we also want to develop a bias.

To us, the downside looks more attractive for a short-term trade. The plunge on May 19 was the last major technical move. As such, we are noting that 91.87 (the high from that day) is a significant point of resistance. From a risk/reward perspective, we are only 50 pips from that high but a 135 pips from our most significant support level. That alone makes us baised to trade this from the short side. What’s more is that the slow stochastics appear ready to start turning over.

On the whole, we want to stay nimble with this pair. We think the next move is going to a big one and we are prepared to give up an early portion of the gains in order to ride the momentum. Keep a close eye on USD/JPY over the next 24 hours.

The U.S. dollar made strong gains against the yen on Monday but was unable to close above a key resistance line. The pair briefly traded at its highest since August but gave back a portion of its gains to close below of the April high of 94.69.

We remain long CAD/JPY but note that even though CAD was the leader in the forex market today and JPY was the laggard, the pair was also unable to break out.

In any case, the price action was short-term bullish. Friday’s slump in stocks and late-day plunge left us questioning our negative JPY bias. It also set up a bearish spinning top formation on the daily charts. Monday’s trading neutralized that though and painted a conditionally bullish picture.

The key in the day ahead remains the resistance at 94.69 stretching up to 94.78. If we see some stops blown out we will be encouraged. What makes us hesitate, however, is that Japan is on holiday until Thursday because of the Golden Week festivities. Holiday trading is treacherous and prime for false breakouts.

If the market fails to make a clear break above 95 before Thursday’s Asia-Pacific session we will be very cautious. The Golden Week is traditionally a down time for JPY so we are on guard.