The ECB came back to say it again after it has not been hear out from the ECB press conferences after its members meetings for determining the interest rate. The ECB president said that it is strong vigilance warranted to watch the prices which has not been said since 2008 when the prices were rising by the credit crisis and the Market Experiences is really priceless!

He added too that the bank sees the inflation will be from 1% to 2.4% next year which means that the ECB can enter new cycle of tightening its monetary policy for containing the prices to reach this while we have reached its ceiling up last months when the EU CPI reached 2.4% y/y.

The market has had the sentence as turning to tightening finally for containing the prices which have been fueled recently by the rising of commodities and energy prices with the tension in the middle East and specially Libya which is one of the most important and nearest oil and gas suppliers to Europe giving Italy 35% of its needs of gas.

The single currency has been pushed up by the comments heading for 1.4 psychological level again getting over its previous formed top at 1.386 versus the greenback and by god's will, this can open the way to 1.4281 which has been reached in the beginning of last November when the greenback was under pressure from the Fed's decision to add another 600b$ in another step of its QE policy for stimulating the economic growth in US and until now and as we have seen this week from Bernanke's testifies which have shown the Fed's existing worries about the jobs market and the need for supporting it and in the same time he has just mentioned the negative impact of the commodities and oil prices rising which can tackle the Fed's easing steps and US recovery hoping that to be temporary and well contained over the long term not even the medium term which is not looking good for the greenback or its interest rate outlook by God's will.

The sterling could not catch up with the single currency rising versus the greenback after breaking its previous resistance at 1.6296 satisfied by being around it out of momentum to continue rising until now as it is still contained by the down revision of UK Q4 GDP quarterly from -.5% to -.6% and the signs of growth down side risks which cap BOE from tightening and the release of February Confederation of British industry survey of the retails sales was the bets figuring out of this stagflation case facing the BOE as it has fallen to 6 from 37 in January to ensure the market worries about the growing pace of the demand which is moving the growth up and in the same time the figure of the selling prices inside the retail sales sector has shown strong rising  from 43 in January to 73 in February which shows the need of tightening too and so there was no major change yet from the MPC as we have seen recently the minutes of its recent meeting showing that there are three ways of the members as Mr. Dale has given his vote to hike the interest rate by .25% like Mr. Martin Weale and Andrew sentence has called for hiking by .5% while Possen was the only vote for increasing the buying bonds plan by another 50b Stg while the other 5 MPC voting members including BOE president Mr. Mervin King preferred leaving the interest rate unchanged keeping BOE 200b Stg buying bonds plan unchanged and this mixed position is reflecting the performance of the sterling too which rise currently when it finds signs of inflation and quickly get back under pressure with the signs of economic weakness and both directions signs are existing containing the sterling movements!

Dow could add 191 points after better than expected release of the weekly jobless claim which has declined to 368k from 388k while the market was waiting for rising to 400k referring to better data to come out from the labor market after the release of Feb US ADP Employment change of February came at 217k while the market was waiting for 184k from 187k in January ahead of today release of US non-farm payroll of February which is expected to be 180k from just 36k in January.

The gold came under pressure after the ECB hinting of rising the interest rate soon expecting the inflation to be between 1% to 2.4% yearly which refer to tightening cycle to be entered for capping down the prices which were underpinning the gold in the recent weeks as a mirror of inflation while the commodities and energy prices were rising because of the tension in the Middle East and the signs of recovery are getting stronger out of euro zone and from another side the gold get under another pressure from the market risk appetite which has improved pushing the investors to get out of the safe haven stance in gold buying shares and taking risks back again with signs of improving of the US labor data which can help the Fed as well to trim its current easing stance soon raising the interest rate too which can weigh negatively too on gold supporting the greenback.

Kind Regards

FX Market Strategist

Walid Salah El Din

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