EUR/USD

The greenback weakened as the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s January meeting released yesterday showed that although US monetary authorities sounded more optimistic about the prospects of US economy, they regard situation at the labor market as still very difficult and underline the necessity of quantitative easing.



Chart. H1 EUR/USD

USD/JPY
The decline of Japanese currency was limited as investors seem to be concerned about the unrest in the Middle East increasing their demand for safer assets such as yen and Swiss franc. This week there were demonstrations in Bahrain, Yemen and Libya after the autocratic ruler in Egypt and Tunisia were overthrown by popular movements. The pair USD/JPY climbed from the minimum at 83.12 hit on February 4 but got stopped by the 83.96 level.



Chart. H4 USD/JPY

AUD/JPY
Australian dollar approached the 9-month maximum trading versus Japanese yen as Reserve Bank of Australia Assistant Governor Philip Lowe claimed that global commodity prices will likely remain at the maximal levels for a long time, so the RBA will have to raise rates acting counter inflation. In addition, yen’s being under pressure because of the widening rate differentials with the rest of the world: the Bank of Japan’s likely to keep the rate at 0.1%, while the RBA’s rate is currently at 4.75%.



Chart. Daily AUD/JPY

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