American equity markets open positively Friday

The US Stock market experienced a much more positive opening Friday, after yesterday’s pullback that gripped all indices in negative territory. Beginning with the indices and composites, the NASDAQ rose +0.59% as it settles in region of 3150.90, up +18.40 points in these moments. In addition, the S&P 500 is trading in positive territory, operating at 1510.55, ascending +8.12 points or +0.54% at the time of writing. Finally, the Dow Jones has moved high at the opening as well, trading in the zone of 13942.72, presently +0.45% after a movement of +62.13 points.

Sectors are nearly all in the green currently, however the Capital Goods and Technology sectors have distinguished themselves as main losers thus far, plummeting +0.95% and +0.86% respectively. In other news, the price of crude has settled below USD $92.71/bbl Friday.

Feb 22, 2013

Forex: EUR/GBP calm around 0.8620

The British Pound experienced higher demand between 12h and 13h GMT, pushing the EUR/GBP lower to 0.8605. The cross was already down on the day since London morning's 40-pip drop from 0.8660 after ECB's LTRO repayments report.

Forex Flash: USD looks at QE3 and EUR eyes economic data - Commerzbank

Commerzbank analysts believe expectations regarding the Fed’s future approach will be the main driver of the greenback and consequently the EUR/USD. “As a result it did not really come as a surprise that EUR/USD shrugged off the very disappointing Phily Fed index (which fell from -5.8 to -12.5 points, while consensus had expected a result of +1.0 points). Economic data is of secondary importance if the Fed has to answer the question whether further bond purchases make sense from a cost-benefit point of view”, wrote Lutz Karpowitz, adding that despite better recovery than in Europe, the Fed has been disappointed with the pace of recovery. “The question now is less whether the Fed will be satisfied after all but whether it will reduce its QE3 measures despite – in its own eyes – unsatisfactory economic recovery”, Karpowitz said.