Veksler's Forex Blog: A listless and nervous market

Clearly a nervous and listless market as evidenced by last night’s moves. Case in point was the quick blip we saw on screens around 17.30CET last night which drew more USD sales and saw the EURUSD and Cable in particular much higher and very quickly. What was behind this I hear you asking…. You wouldn’t believe it, but it was news (if it can be called that) that 2 Iranian naval ships were seen at the opening of the Suez Canal and were awaiting permission to enter. Now the fact that these 2 ships were going to be in the vicinity was already known on Monday, however practically no reaction seen, but all of a sudden on Wednesday night this becomes a market moving event

Macro Kickoff: UK retail sales off to a good start in 2011?

As the working week draws to a close we are treated to U.K. retail sales and Canadian CPI, both of which are expected to grow on a monthly basis.
UK retail sales to inch higher
Retail sales in the U.K. are expected to climb 0.3 percent month-on-month in January (consensus: 0.2) following the 0.3 percent decline in December, which took the yearly growth rate down to 1 percent. As energy prices have surged in recent months their contribution to retail sales is expected to propel the 'with auto fuel' series 0.5 percent higher month-on-month.