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A surprise decline in crude oil inventories led to a reversal to the downside
in the U.S. Dollar on Wednesday. Crude oil rallied sharply higher triggering
rallies in the equity and currency markets on the notion that trader demand
for higher risk assets would increase.
Higher equity and energy prices helped the EUR USD gain ground throughout
the day in a combination of short-covering and fresh buying. Many Euro traders
had been leaning to the short-side prior to the crude oil news due to a sell-off
in the Chinese stock market overnight. This weakness helped create a risk adverse
environment and traders were selling in anticipation of less demand for higher
risk assets. The bullish news regarding crude oil inventories caught early
sellers by surprise forcing them to cover their newly initiated short positions.
The main trend is down on the daily chart. Without a follow-through rally overnight
or tomorrow expect the trend to continue down.
Stronger equity and energy markets helped weaken the USD CAD. The U.S. Dollar
was trading better against the Canadian early in the trading session, but the
bullish crude oil news forced weaker USD CAD longs out of the market. The next
two days will determine if the trend is turning back down or if today's action
was an aberration.
Stronger demand for equities helped boost the higher yielding AUD USD and
NZD USD. The rally in these two markets appears to be short-covering in reaction
to a hard rally in the crude market due to 0bullish inventory news. Today's
action may have been the test of last week's highs in these two markets.
The GBP USD erased much of this morning's early losses when equity and crude
oil markets took off to the upside. Overnight the pressure was on the British
Pound following the release of the minutes from the Bank of England policy
meeting on August 6th. This news created a bearish stir because it showed that
BoE Governor Mervyn King was looking for a greater increase in quantitative
easing than was eventually agreed upon.
The giveback in the Forex markets late in the trading session may be an indication
that today's action was just an aberration as nothing was done to actually
change the trend. The action over the next two days will dictate whether the
Dollar will continue to gain strength or start on another leg lower.
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