EUR / USD, GBP / USD

On Wednesday, as we expected, the accompanying statement of the FOMC carried out a clearly "hawkish" push. The Committee said the unwinding of the balance sheet will begin in September. "The Committee expects to begin implementing its balance sheet normalization program relatively soon". The doubts of investors have disappeared - if the unwinding starts in September, then the rate hike will be in December. And ahead of September, Congress must raise the ceiling of the nation debt. Overall, three powerful factors will work to strengthen the dollar in a really short time. However, the euro and the pound were bought against the news. The euro gained 86 points while the pound added 96 points. Following the two, other currencies also started to strengthen. News agency Bloomberg made an awkward attempt to explain what is happening. Investors fear a possible US default, if the ceiling of the national debt will not be raised. However, only yields on bonds fell. Sales of new homes in the US were just below the forecast of 610,000 against 615,000, which confirms our earlier assumption that primary home sales are growing while sales are down on the secondary market. This is a positive sign of consumer investment. In the UK, GDP in the 2nd quarter was in line with expectations at 0.3%.

What markets are stretching here for three months continues to be a mystery. However, an even greater mystery is the time that will stop this game. It could be the September meeting of the Fed, a decision by the Congress in August on the debt limit, the annual economic policy symposium in Jackson Hole or another event.

The US is expecting good data today, but once again they can be taken as an incentive to risk; The volume of orders for durable goods in June is expected to increase by 3.5% while the forecast for core orders is 0.4%. The commodity trade balance in June is expected to be -65.0 billion dollars against -65.9 billion in May. Wholesale inventories may show a June rise of 0.3%. In the UK, the CBI's retail sales balance for July is expected to fall from 12 to 10.

The euro will likely rise to 1.1875 while the British pound is rising to 1.3215.

AUD/USD

The Australian dollar is taking full advantage of the US currency's weakness and the subsequent growth of commodities. Iron ore gained 1.4% yesterday, breaching the psychological level of $70 ($70.43), oil added 0.41%, but after a previous growth of 4.28%, and slight growth is still seen as good. This rush could not be reassured either by the head of the RBA Philip Lowe, who announced the undesirability of such a rise in the national currency, or weak quarterly inflationary indicators - the CPI for the 2nd quarter rose only 0.2% against expectations of 0.4%, year on year. The CPI dropped from 2.1% to 1.9%. Import prices in the second quarter fell by 0.1% while exports were down 5.7% (against growth in the 1st quarter by 9.4%).

The data on the profits of Chinese industrial firms helped the "Aussie" and Asian markets today. Profits surged 19.1 in June y/y after 16.7% in May.

Tomorrow there are no macroeconomic indicators for Australia and China. However, data will be released for Japan and the expectations are positive. We are waiting for the continuation of the Aussie's growth to 0.8135, and further to 0.8220.