Plunging Jobless Claims & Latest Premium Insights

US Jobless claims plunged by 30K to the lowest level since 2008. Euro ignores Spanish downgrade; AUD labor market data mixed; French CPI declined. The latest edition of Ashrafs Premium Insights is out, with new ideas on EURUSD, EURJPY, GBPUSD, oil and CADJPY. See direct link below.

USD weaker across the board, except JPY and has lost all of yesterday's gains. European equities are gaining 0.6% and the relative strength winner is NZD while JPY lags.

Positive sentiment helped the common currency to push higher and back above the 1.29 figure which is somewhat surprising given yesterday's Spanish downgrade by the S&P to BBB- from BBB+ with negative long term outlook.

AUDUSD gained from 1.0216 to 1.0265 after September employment was above expectations at 14.5K after previous decline by 9.1K. Rising full time employment along with a higher participation rate meant that the Aussie strengthened despite the unemployment rate that rose sharply to 5.4% from previous 5.1%. AUDUSD trades around 1.0285.

On the data front, German September CPI was unrevised at 2.0% y/y, French CPI declined 0.3% from 0.7% m/m and slowed to 1.9% from 2.1% y/y and Greek unemployment rate rose in July to 25.1% from 24.8%.

US Initial jobless claims plunged by 30,000 to 339,000 the lowest level seen since February 16, 2008 when claims were also 339,000. No special factors were listed from the data, but volatility was mentioned when the seasonal adjustment is expecting large swings in claims.

The US trade gap widened in August to $44.2 bn from a revised $42.5 bn, largely due to rising energy prices. Visible trade gap widened to $59.3 bn $57.8 bn.

Markets also await the FOMC member and the FED governor Jeremy Stein's speech on asset purchases which is scheduled to start at 10:00 am ET.

Todays Premium Insights are titled Breaking down GBP Stochastics. A Direct link can be found here: http://ashraflaidi.com/products/sub01/access/?a=686 Non subscribers can join here: http://ashraflaidi.com/products/sub01