USD marches higher while stocks await next move

Summary:

• Strong ISM send EURUSD sub 1.13 and USDJPY above 112

• UK service sector activity unexpectedly rises

• US stocks face make or break session?

• Two Bitcoin developers send lightning payment using radio waves

• Top charts for the week: US500, Silver and USDPLN

The US has rounded off a day of service sector data with a strong reading that has boosted the greenback to its highest levels of the day. After an early disappointment from China, the service figures on the whole have been pleasing, none have been more so than the ISM non-manufacturing PMI which rose to 59.7 for February. Not only is the reading the highest in 3 months, but it is also comfortably above the 57.4 expected and 56.7 seen last time out. The EURUSD has fallen to its lowest level in over a fortnight since the release with the pair breaking below the 23.6% fib at 1.1300 in doing so. USDJPY has also taken out a big round number in moving above the 112 handle to trade at its 2019 highs. However, the region around 112.35 may still provide some resistance to a larger move higher.

The latest read on the UK service sector has come in better than expected, with the PMI reading for February rising to 51.3. This keeps the indicator above the 50 mark and crucially means that it hasn’t followed the construction equivalent into contraction territory. There are 2 factors that make the beat all the more pleasing; first that the service sector is by far the largest and second that while the manufacturing reading for last month remained above 50, it was due in no small part to record levels of stockpiling for fear of a no-deal Brexit - something which is hardly positive and isn’t really feasible for services.

US stocks begun the new week with a bang yesterday, gapping higher on more trade optimism before being hit with some sizable selling and then recovering into the close. After price once more respected the region below 2824, sellers stepped in and saw the largest intra-day drop in several weeks with price tumbling over 50 handles from the highs. Today the market is attempting to regain its poise, with 2824 resistance at 2764 support for the US500.

Monday brought sizeable drops in the cryptocurrency market continuing the weekend’s gloomy moods. However, Tuesday has started quite positively as major cryptos have gone up after three days of declines. As a result, the largest virtual currency Bitcoin has returned above the $3700 mark (it closed yesterday’s trading around $3675) during Tuesday’s trading. According to CoinMarketCap, the capitalization of the whole cryptocurrency market stands a little below the $128 billion handle whereas the market capitalization of altcoins sits around the $61 billion handle at press time. Cryptocurrencies seem to be inseparably linked to the Internet as it allowed to popularize them. However, two Bitcoin developers decided to show that there are also other alternative ways of doing crypto payments. Namely, Rodolfo Novak (a co-founder of Bitcoin company CoinKite) sent a Bitcoin lightning payment to Elaine Ou (a Bloomberg columnist) using radio waves. As a result, Bitcoin was moved from San Francisco (US) to Toronto (Canada). The transaction was organized on Twitter some days ago. While radio waves do not seem to be the ideal way of transmitting cryptocurrencies, it might be potentially the alternative for the Internet payments.

The top charts for this week focuses on the US500, Silver and USDPLN and can be viewed here.