U.S. Market January 26, 2001

After the dollars weakening in Europe and New York yesterday Asia took a breather today as the majors traded in narrow ranges. USDJPY opened around 116.65/68 and retraced a little early Tokyo morning to 116.96 unable to make it past 117.00. Alan Greenspan’s speech today has made traders fearful to be long the greenback, Greenspan said yesterday that the economy had virtually come to a complete slowdown, but that a recession was unlikely. The interest rate market bought the front end of the curve pricing in a full 50 basis point rate cut next Tuesday. This should keep the dollar from making any significant rally, as we saw in the euro overnight. Euro which had slipped to 0.9117 rallied back above 0.9200 opening Asia at 0.9235 and trying for the break above 0.9250/60 area. Needless to say the currency met with much resistance at this highly important technical level. EURUSD slid back to 0.9220 by our session end. AUDUSD had a painfully quiet session trading between 0.5455 and 0.5460. NZDUSD backed off from 0.4380 to 0.4355. GBPUSD climbed higher at the start to 1.4617 but slipped back under the figure to settle at 1.4590.