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FX Breakout Monitor: Sterling and Scandies on the rocks

Forex 3 minutes to read
Picture of John Hardy
John J. Hardy

Global Head of Macro Strategy

Summary:  The recent slow slide in sterling took on considerable energy today as noise from both the UK and EU side show no progress and Boris Johnson and his team seem willing to trigger a No Deal Brexit in defiance of Parliament. Elsewhere, the risk-off from the spike in Brexit concerns is hitting EM and the Scandies are also on the defensive with new breakouts lower versus the euro.


The FX Breakout Monitor is back, and it is expanded with "autosignals" that show examples of how to trade new breakouts, defined as new 19-day high or low closes not preceded by a breakout in the same direction in the prior week. Click on the link below for a look at the full PDF of the table overview and the Recent New Breakouts tables. See further below for a couple of chart highlights related to today's monitor.

Today’s Breakout monitor
We’re picking up a bit more energy around the edges of the Breakout Monitor in recent days, as the Scandies (SEK and NOK) have been taken to new 19-day lows versus the Euro and EURSEK closed at a new multi-year high for the cycle yesterday. And today, if sterling closes near where it is trading as of this writing, it will have also cleared a new 19-day low versus the euro and the yen that could prove the start of a significant breakdown.

The US dollar continues to keep its intentions unknown. USDCAD broke back higher recently, as we pointed out, nominally posting a new 19-day high, but so far having failed  to clear the range. Elsewhere, the USD picture is generally muddled, though today we did see a significant move lower in EM as the sudden aggravation of Brexit worries and a headline that the White House is looking to eliminate Chinese stocks from government funds (federal pension funds?) doesn’t look like a good sign ahead of US-China talks set to start on Thursday. EM weakness was led by a steep TRY sell-off to a new 19-day high close yesterday after bellicose threats from Trump to “destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey” if Turkey made any move deemed wrong by the Trump administration in Syria. USDTRY is also threatening a new 49-day high today.

Today’s Breakout Highlight: GBPJPY
GBPJPY is poking below its 19-day low daily close of 131.84 today, trading below 130.50 at one point as concerns rise that we are headed for a hard, chaotic, No Deal Brexit at the end of this month after signals from both the UK and the EU that negotiations are leading nowhere at the moment. Note that the price action has taken us to the line that was the previous break-out line to the upside back in early September, which led to a very successful run higher for break-out traders.

08_10_2019_JJH_Breakoutr_01
Source: Saxo Bank

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