European Breakfast Brief

European shares and indexs opened lower this morning despite talk of leveraging the permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), to give it more capacity to help struggling euro zone economies. All eyes will be on the German IFO Survey of business confidence due out at 9am. Expectations call for a slight pick-up on the headline Business Climate gauge, snapping four consecutive months of losses. Needless to say, a soft reading may conversely amplify risk aversion further.

European stocks look set to open firmer, after BOJ initiated another round of Quantitive Easing, this was 40% to 50% priced into the market as analysts believed it would be implemented this month or in October. The terms of the easing were 80 Trillion Yen, the 10 trillion extra increase will be split between asset purchases and Japanese Government bonds. The Nikkei was up 0.5% to 9171.
At present Wall street sits at 1617, a lot of resistance is seen at 1630, with the market not being able to breach that level from numerous attempts during the Asian session.
Resistance on the EUR/USD looks strong at 1.303 and the topside is being contained around 1.3075.
Happy Trading!

Brunch Brief

The US Stock Futures opened lower this afternoon, after the major indexes (SnP500, DowJ, NASDAQ)  retreated back from their previous four-day winning streaks. This coupled with a poor outlook for the Eurozone played down by a troubled Spanish economy and a potential Spanish bailout can only presume that the morning mood will prevail this afternoon.

The EUR/USD has retreated from morning highs and traders should look to remain bearish this afternoon, as the outlook remains negative and it will be hard to see the EUR getting back to 1.3100 levels.

DowJ has been trading towards the downside this morning but we have seen the 13,500 resistance level holding firm, on the upside the Dow is pressing against the 13,538 (200day SMA) resistance, but traders should be aware that rallies will more than likely be short lived.

Happy Trading

European Breakfast Bulletin

Europe:
European shares are expected  to open lower this morning as investors wait for Spain to decide whether to ask for help from the European Central Bank’s bond-buying schedule.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano remains uncertain about tapping the ECB’s bond-buying program, which would mean signing up to a permanent bailout fund.
The EUR/USD traded higher overnight reaching a high of 1.31141 but was subsequently brought down to a session low of 1.30906.
Uncertainty remains prevalent throughout the Eurozone and all eyes will be focused on German ZEW Business Confidence data to be released at 10.00am.