Weekly review.

Week starting Monday 1 April was an up, down, up week for the USD in terms of economic data. Starting with manufacturing ISM reported better than expected, keeping the 'higher for longer' narrative as the market continued to speculate a US rate cut could come later than June.

By wednesday it all changed as service ISM (which has been a thorn in the FED's quest to cut rates) was below expectations and kick started a bout of 'risk on' and all of a sudden the market was eager to price in earlier and more cuts again. The USD was sold and the selling continued throughout Thursday when US jobless claims data backed up the narrative.

Of course, nothing is ever straight forward and out of the blue, concerns over the conflict in the Middle East caused a brief period of panic, which fortunately didn't last long but serves as a reminder that anything can happen at any moment.

On Friday, NFP was reported and much better numbers than expected took us full circle back to the possibility of a later than June cut from the FED. The USD initially strengthened but that strength didn't continue, most likely due to Friday afternoon profit taking.

In other news. Europe and Switzerland both reported softer than expected inflation data, which keeps the CHF in particular on my 'to short' radar along with the JPY.

Another notable movement was the rise in commodity prices, particularly gold and copper, which underpinned the AUD and is something to keep an eye on moving forward ( if commodity prices keep rising, this could raise concerns of a re-acceleration in inflation).

On a personal note, it was a positive week with three trades, just slightly marred by the lack of follow through USD buying on Friday. And given the up, down, up nature of the USD, I'll start the week with no expectations and be guided by the data and rate cut narrative of each currency.

Results for week:

Trade 1: USD CHF +1.5

Trade 2: AUD CHF +1.5

Trade 3: EUR USD -1

Total= +2%

Total since start of blog= +20% (risking 1% per trade).

Fell free to email any questions: johnelfedforexblog@gmail.com