Daily Forex Fundamentals - May 22, 2012

Daily Forex Fundamentals - May 22, 2012

U.S. Dollar (USD)

It looks like the dollar had the Monday blues yesterday. With the market's newfound appetite for risk, the currency was shrugged off as traders sought higher-yielding currencies. EUR/USD ended Monday's trading 33 pips higher while AUD/USD closed 79 pips above its opening price at .9916.

Euro (EUR)

Thanks to a little bit of market optimism from the G8 meetings over the weekend, the euro was able to continue rebounding and post another winning day against the safe haven dollar. EUR/USD closed out the day at 1.2816, 33 pips higher from its opening price during the Asian session.

British Pound (GBP)

The pound edged higher against its counterparts for the second day in a row yesterday despite the lack of economic data from the U.K. Cable capped the day 59 pips from its intraday low, while Guppy rose by another 39 pips to 125.61. Here's what's ahead for the pound.

Japanese Yen (JPY)

In the same way that ice cream doesn't go well with vinegar, the yen also doesn't fare well when risk appetite is in play. Just take a look at its performance yesterday. It scored losses against all of its major counterparts, giving up 22 pips to the dollar, 54 pips to the euro, and 40 pips to the pound.

Canadian Dollar (CAD)

For the first time in six days, the Loonie was able to get one-up on the safe haven Greenback. After opening the day at 1.0224, USD/CAD was sold-off throughout the day, allowing the pair to close the U.S. trading session 54 pips lower at 1.0170.

Australian Dollar (AUD)

Aaah, there's nothin' like good ol' risk appetite to get traders to drool over the Aussie like ice cold beer on a hot summer day. AUD/USD rallied yesterday after opening at .9837 and ended the day up at .9916.

New Zealand Dollar (NZD)

Now that's how you stage a comeback! After dropping by 101 pips last Friday, NZD/USD bounced back up with a vengeance and ended the day 90 pips higher than its open price. Boo yeah!

Swiss Franc (CHF)

Despite the overall risk appetite that ruled the markets yesterday, the low-yielding franc posted gains against its major counterparts. In fact, USD/CHF fell by another 22 pips to .9368 while GBP/CHF also dropped by 32 pips.

Swiss economic data might have also boosted the franc as the SECO consumer climate data showed that consumers aren’t as pessimistic last quarter than they were in the last quarter of 2011. The index figure came in at -8, which is a lot better than the -19 figure that we saw in three months ago. Remember that a reading above 0.0 indicated optimism.

No Swiss data is scheduled for release today, so you might want to keep close tabs on risk sentiment. Who knows, you might find a decent risk-related trade among the franc pairs!