Weekly Review and Outlook Swiss Franc Broadly Higher on Risk Aversion, Eurozone Uncertainties, Fed No QE3

Eurozone and Greece news dominated headlines last week but it was Swiss Franc that shone over the week, making new record highs against both Dollar, Euro and Sterling. Greece Prime Minister Papandreou passed the confidence vote by a thin margin and will face parliamentary vote on the new austerity package this week before finally getting EU approval on the fifth bailout fund payment will be approved on July 3. Everybody in the markets is expecting the the Greece funding to be approved eventually but remained cautiously as this is still far from certainty. Meanwhile, worries on contagion never go away as Moody's turned focus to Italy and said it's considering downgrading a group of Italian banks. The debt crisis in Eurozone continued to weigh on market sentiments.

On the other hand, investors are clearly dissatisfied with Fed's outlook and the lack of talk on QE3. After the FOMC meeting, Fed Chairman Bernanke signaled that there will be no QE3 after expected completion of QE2 in June. Tone of the accompanying statement was less optimistic than the last one as the Fed noted that recovery is continuing "somewhat more slowly than the Committee had expected." Fed also lowered GDP projection and raised unemployment projection.Economic data from US were generally soft and affirmed the view of slowdown in general.

Sterling was also one of the weakest currency after the dovish BoE minutes. Vote split of the June meeting changed from 6-3 to 7-1 in favor of no change after arch-hawk Sentance left the committee and was replaced by Broadbent, who joined the doves camp. Dale and Weale were the only hawk left, who voted for 25bps hike. The minutes were overall quite dovish as members' focus moved away from inflation threat to the fragile economic recovery. The minutes suggested that a near term hike is highly unlikely and BoE would instead keep rates unchanged until next year. Indeed, the note that the risk of undershooting the 2% inflation target over the next few years has increased. Meanwhile, some members thought "it was possible that further asset purchases might become warranted if the downside risks to medium-term inflation materialized."

Stocks and more notably, commodities, were generally lower after a volatile week. DOW finished the recovery from 11862 and dipped sharply since then. Technically, DOW is held below the falling 55 days EMA, thus, keeping the outlook bearish. We'd expect correction from 12890 to resume in near term, probably early this week to 38.2% retracement at 11639 and possibly further to below 11555.48 support. Such development would likely provide some support to the greenback. 

The CRB commodities index also resumed the whole fall from 370.70 and reached as low as 326.88 last week. Crude oil breached 90 level and remained weak. Meanwhile, gold is back pressing 1500 level and should have reversed the near term trend. Broad based weakness in commodities should send the CRB index through 323.54 retracement level, possibly to 100% projection of 370.7 to 332.92 from 352.05 at 314. And the development should also provide support to dollar.

However, the tricky part of intermarket outlook is that dollar index is not having decisive strength yet as it's still kept below 76.36 resistance and doesn't sustain above medium term falling trend line from 88.70 yet. We'll continue to stay neutral. Note that break of 76.36 resistance should confirm medium term reversal on bullish convergence condition in daily MACD. And, in such case, we should see further rally in the dollar index through 77.17 projection target and possibly to 38.2% retracement of 88.70 to 72.69 at 78.80 at least. 

 So far, EUR/USD has been holding firmly above 1.4 level in spite of all the volatile price actions. And that's the major factor that's restricting dollar index's rise. On the other hand, if the above risk-off movements realize, swiss franc will likely continue to be the main beneficiary. GBP/CHF made another record low at 1.3271 last week and the downtrend is accelerating as seen in the falling, negative, weekly MACD. Near term outlook remains bearish as long as 1.3614 resistance holds and the down trend should extend to next medium term target of 61.8% projection of 2.4965 to 1.5112 from 1.8113 at 1.2024. 

The Week Ahead

Greece's parliamentary vote on the austerity measures will definitely be a major focus of the week. In addition, as markets are clearly in a risk-off mode currently, much volatility would be triggered by the growth data this week, in particular the PMI data from China, Swiss, UK and the US ISM manufacturing. Another key event would be UK inflation report hearings where analysts would scrutinize the words from BoE policy makes to affirm the view that the bank would stand pat for the rest of this year.

• Monday: New Zealand trade balance; US personal spending and income
• Tuesday: Japan retail sales; Swiss UBS consumption indicator; German Gfk consumer sentiment, Prelim CPI; UK current account; GDP final, inflation report hearings; US S&P Case-Shiller house price; consumer confidence
• Wednesday: Japan industrial production; Swiss KOF leading indicator; Canadian CPI; US pending home sales;
• Thursday:UK nationwide house price; German unemployment, Eurozone M3, CPI flash; Canada GDP; US jobless claims, Chicago PMI
• Friday: Japan CPI, quarterly tank an; China PMI; Swiss SVME PMI; UK PMI manufacturing; Eurozone unemployment; US ISM manufacturing

EUR/CHF Weekly Outlook

EUR/CHF dropped to new record low at 1.1802 last week and met mentioned target of 100% projection of 1.3833 to 1.2399 from 1.3243 at 1.1809. Initial bias remains on the downside this week and sustained trading below 1.18 should pave the way to long term projection target at 1.1516. On the upside, above 1.1968 minor resistance will turn bias neutral and bring consolidations. But sustained trading above near term falling channel (now at 1.2103) is needed to be the first signal of short term bottoming or we'll stay bearish.

In the bigger picture, whole down trend from 1.6827 (2007 high) is still in progress and in any case, medium term outlook will remain bearish as long as 1.3243 resistance holds. The current down trend should now target 138.2% projection of 1.8234 to 1.4391 from 1.6827 at 1.1516.

In the long term picture, fall from 1.6827 should be resuming whole down trend from 1993 high of 1.8234. The is some side of re-acceleration as seen in weekly MACD and break of 138.2% projection of 1.8234 to 1.4391 from 1.6827 at 1.1516 will target 161.8% projection at 1.0609.