Daily Newsletter: 28/04/2008 By Jean-Claude Braha - ACM Advanced Currency Markets, Geneva, Switzerland Today's Economic Calendar: TIME (GMT) EVENT VALUE NAME CONS. No Events Scheduled Full week Economic Calendar
Last week European data knocked off Euro from record 1.6019 high News and Events:Last week's rally in the Dollar may have also led some investors to sell the currency ahead of the weekend to cash in profits, traders said.
On Friday, Dollar had limited reaction to a report showing US consumer confidence fell for a third straight month, touching its weakest in more than 25 years.
In Europe, the Ifo German business sentiment index showed the biggest monthly fall since September 2001 on Thursday, taking the April headline number to a two-year low.
The percentage chance the Fed will keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2.25% at this week meeting rose to about 26%. Just a week ago, futures markets were pricing between a 25 to 50bp cut. Meanwhile, FX participants were paring bets that the ECB's next move will be a hike in benchmark interest rates. Read Today's Key Issues and The Risk Today
Resistance and Support:EURUSD GBPUSD USDJPY USDCHF 1.6200 T 2.0577 T 111.92 K 1.1191 S 1.6019 M 2.0447 S 110.10 T 1.0500 S 1.6000 K 2.0100 P 105.00 S 1.0457 T 1.5630 1.9790 104.50 1.0340 1.5528 S 1.9650 S 102.95 M 1.0200 S 1.5400 T 1.9337 S 100.00 P 0.9637 K 1.5000 K 1.9105 K 95.74 S 0.9500 T S: Strong, M: Minor, T: Trendline, K: Keylevel, P: Pivot
Quick access to our 5 previous newsletters: Dollar rose after better US employment report and large fall in... Euro reversed gains after less hawkish interest rate remarks... Euro rallies up to 1.6019 on expectation ECB may raise rates Traders await US housing data today; Dollar gains some ground Dollar gain on Friday after Citigroup results and credit crisis... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
India, Iran set for energy talks during Ahmadinejad visit AFP via Yahoo! News Tue, 29 Apr 2008 0:32 AM PDT Iran's
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to arrive in New Delhi Tuesday for a
lightning visit due to be dominated by talks on gas supplies as
energy-starved India searches for new fuel sources.
Iran president to visit India for talks on gas pipeline AP via Yahoo! News Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:59 PM PDT
India and Iran
were expected to push ahead with a $7 billion gas pipeline during a
visit by the Iranian president to New Delhi on Tuesday, despite
opposition from the United States.
Iran Advises Self-Censorship New York Times Mon, 28 Apr 2008 9:51 PM PDT Iran?s
culture minister reacted on Monday to publishers? criticisms of the
country?s evaluation process by urging writers to censor their own
books if they hoped for publication in the Islamic republic, Agence
France-Presse reported. At a news conference the minister, Mohammad
Hossein Safar, said: ?This is what we ask publishers and writers, ?You
are aware of the vetting code, so censor pages ...
A Tantalizing Look at Iran?s Nuclear Program New York Times Mon, 28 Apr 2008 7:15 PM PDT
Is Iran?s nuclear program peaceful or not? A trove of new photos is giving Westerners some tantalizing clues.
A tantalizing look at Iran's nuclear program International Herald Tribune Mon, 28 Apr 2008 9:21 PM PDT
In April, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Natanz, Iran's nuclear enrichment facility. Photographs of the tour have provided the first significant look inside the atomic riddle.
US envoy slams Iran's alleged destabilizing role in Iraq AFP via Yahoo! News Mon, 28 Apr 2008 1:01 PM PDT
The US ambassador to the UN on Monday slammed the alleged destabilizing role of Iran and Syria in Iraq and urged them to stop the flow of weapons and foreign fighters into their war-scarred neighbor.
Iran-led radicals getting stronger, Israel warns AFP via Yahoo! News Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:00 PM PDT
An Iran-led
radical front in the Middle East is becoming more powerful and
weaknesses in it need to be found, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Shaul
Mofaz said Monday.
Iran to discuss pipeline with India, Pakistan CNN.com Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:53 AM PDT
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad heads to Pakistan and India this
week to put the finishing touches on a controversial deal to build a
pipeline that would deliver Iranian gas to both countries, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency says.
Iran discusses package of nuclear proposals with Russia AP via Yahoo! News Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:19 AM PDT Iran
and Russia on Monday discussed the outlines of "serious proposals"
aimed at assuring the international community that Tehran's nuclear
program is peaceful, state media reported.
Admiral stresses he prefers diplomatic solution with Tehran
By Ann Scott Tyson |The Washington Post
April 26, 2008
WASHINGTON
— The nation's top military officer said Friday that the Pentagon is
planning for "potential military courses of action" against Iran,
criticizing what he called the Tehran government's "increasingly lethal
and malign influence" in Iraq.
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a conflict with Iran would be
"extremely stressing" but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing
specifically to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force.
"It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," he said at a Pentagon news conference.
Still, Mullen made clear that he prefers a diplomatic solution to the
tensions with Iran and does not foresee any imminent military action.
"I have no expectations that we're going to get into a conflict with
Iran in the immediate future," he said.
Mullen's statements and
others by Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently signal a new
rhetorical onslaught by the Bush administration against Iran amid what
officials say is increased Iranian provision of weapons, training and
financing to Iraqi groups that are attacking and killing Americans.
In a speech Monday at West Point,
Gates said Iran "is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons." He said a
war with Iran would be "disastrous on a number of levels. But the
military option must be kept on the table given the destabilizing
policies of the regime and the risks inherent in a future Iranian
nuclear threat."
Briefing expected
Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq who was
nominated this week to head all U.S. forces in the Middle East, is
preparing a briefing soon to lay out evidence of increased Iranian
involvement in Iraq, Mullen said. The briefing will detail, for
example, the discovery in Iraq of weapons that were very recently
manufactured in Iran, he said.
"The Iranian government pledged
to halt such activities some months ago. It's plainly obvious they have
not. Indeed, they seem to have gone the other way," Mullen said.
He said recent unrest in the southern Iraqi city of Basra had
highlighted a "level of involvement" by Iran that had not been
understood by the U.S. military previously. "It became very, very
visible in ways that we hadn't seen before," he said.
But while
Mullen and Gates have recently said that Tehran must know of Iranian
actions in Iraq, which they say are led by Iran's Revolutionary Guards,
Mullen said he has "no smoking gun which could prove that the highest
leadership [of Iran] is involved in this."
Incident Thursday
In
an incident early Thursday, a cargo ship contracted by the U.S.
military fired "several bursts" of warning shots at two fast boats that
approached in international waters off the Iranian coast, defense
officials said Friday.
The unidentified small boats approached
the Westward Venture, a ship carrying U.S. military hardware, as it
headed north through the central Persian Gulf about 8 a.m., said Cmdr.
Lydia Robertson, spokeswoman for the Navy's 5th Fleet, which is based
in Bahrain.
The U.S. ship initiated bridge-to-bridge
communications and, after receiving no response, fired a flare. The
speedboats continued to approach, so the ship fired warning shots with
a .50-caliber machine gun and M-16 rifle. The boats then left the area,
she said.
"They fired several bursts; it went pretty quickly," Robertson said.
Soon afterward, an Iranian coast guard boat queried the Western
Venture, Robertson said. It was unclear whether that was one of the
small boats.
"There have been some Iranian boats that have
operated this way and some unidentified boats," said Robertson, adding
that the crew had no voice communication with the small boats.
In January, five Iranian patrol boats sped toward a U.S. warship and
dropped small, boxlike objects into the water, an incident that alarmed
military officials and that President Bush
called a "provocative act." The objects turned out to pose no threat to
the USS Port Royal or two other U.S. vessels accompanying it.
The Impressionists
