Forex: EUR/USD keeps the negative mood - NASDAQ
FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - The euro has quickly left behind the support at 1.2500, as renewed concerns about the bloc are again hovering over the markets. At the same time, German and French downbeat data have only added to the gloom, intensified after Italian industrial output sunk 1.9% MoM in April, down from +0.6% in March. In the annualized print, the decline was 9.2% vs. -5.6%.
According to J.Kruger, Technical Strategist at DailyFX, the late advance in the cross would obey to extreme 'oversold' readings in technical studies. He adds "…while our overall outlook remains grossly bearish, from here we still see room for short-term upside before a fresh lower top is sought out…".
The cross is now losing 0.75% at 1.2473 with the next support lying at 1.2441 ahead of 1.2375 and then 1.2293
On the upside, a breakout of 1.2598 would expose 1.2626 and then 1.2650
Forex: USD/CAD edging closer to 2012 high - FXStreet.com
FOREX-Euro falls vs dollar as Spain concerns mount - Reuters India
* Euro retreats after Spanish rating downgrade
* Lacklustre Italian, German economic data adds to gloom
* Lack of policy action from Fed hits riskier currencies
By Nia Williams
LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) - The euro fell against the dollar and yen on Friday after a Spanish credit rating downgrade added to investor reluctance to take on risk and ratcheted up concern the European debt crisis was intensifying.
European Union and German sources told Reuters Spain was expected to make a request over the weekend for an aid package to prop up its troubled banks, highlighting the vulnerability of the country's financial sector.
Perceived riskier currencies were also under pressure after U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke offered no hints of imminent monetary stimulus in his testimony to Congress on Thursday, wrongfooting some market players who had positioned for a dovish statement.
The euro fell 0.75 percent to $1.2461, retreating from a two-week high of $1.2625 hit on Thursday after a surprise interest rate cut by the Chinese central bank.
Technical charts showed the euro was vulnerable to a test of the 23-month low of $1.2288 hit on June 1, after failing to break support-turned-resistance at $1.2626, the January low.
"With the negative news on Spain's rating cut it's back to reality for the market. The recovery we saw in the last few days was not a sustainable one," said Lutz Karpowitz, currency strategist at Commerzbank, who forecast the euro would be around $1.20 by the end of June.
Rating agency Fitch slashed Spain's credit rating by three notches on Thursday, signalling further downgrades could come as the country tries to restructure its troubled banking system.
The euro also took a knock after Italian industrial production fell far more than expected in April and German imports tumbled at their fastest rate in two years in April, adding to concerns of the euro zone slipping into recession.
FED HOLDS FIRE
Riskier currencies pared gains against the dollar made earlier in the week when investors sold safe-haven currencies on speculation central banks could signal further monetary easing to support growth.
Bernanke told Congress the Fed was closely monitoring "significant risks" to the U.S. recovery from Europe's debt crisis, disappointing those looking for him to lay out the groundwork for a third round of large-scale Fed bond buying.
The dollar index rose 0.9 percent to 82.771, recovering from a 10-day low of 81.911 hit on Thursday. The Australian dollar slipped 0.7 percent against the U.S. currency to US$0.9828.
Traders also cited talk that Chinese economic data due at the weekend could be weak and that Beijing's easing might have been aimed at pre-empting the grim news.
"Some people had high expectations of Bernanke, which he didn't match. The shock would have been much larger if it had not been for the Chinese rate cut," said Ayako Sera, market economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.
The euro fell 1.2 percent against the yen to 98.80 yen. The safe-haven Japanese currency gained broadly as market sentiment soured, with the dollar falling 0.5 percent to 79.22 yen.
Many analysts said the euro could come under further pressure next week as attention refocuses on political turmoil in Greece before an election on June 17. A victory for anti-bailout parties would raise the possibility of Greece leaving the currency union.
"Take my money, HBO!": Why you won't be able to watch Game of Thrones online anytime soon in the UK - New Statesman
Take My Money, HBO is a growing online campaign aimed at getting HBO, the American subscriber-TV network and home of the Sopranos, Game of Thrones and Curb Your Enthusiasm, to provide those without American cable, both "cord-cutters" and international audiences, a way to pay directly for the channels HBO streams through its HBOGO online service.
Currently, you can only receive HBOGO – the company's equivalent of BBC's iPlayer – if you subscribe to a participating American cable channel. Which isn't the best thing to tell people who want to move all their TV viewing online, or who don't actually live in America.
There are other ways to get HBO content, of course; you can wait until the DVD box set comes out, or buy it from iTunes once it is released there. But both of those are on a huge delay; the downloads and DVDs for Game of Thrones were finally made available this March, 11 months after the series started airing.
Alternatively, there is piracy. The day after most episodes aired, they were available in HD, for free, on sites like The Pirate Bay.
Clearly, that's not optimal. This comic, from earlier this year, neatly sums up the issues many had: Programs have aired, people are talking about them, but without a 1990s-style TV set-up, you can't actually watch them legally.
Hence, "Take My Money". The site asks users to tweet at HBOGO the amount they would be willing to pay for a subscription to the service; the average suggestiong is around $12 a month, according to TechCrunch
The business rationale at the first instance seems compelling. Digitopoly's Joshua Gans explains:
HBO has 29 million subscribers in the US paying around $10 per month. HBO receives $8 of that. That would seem to suggest that HBO couldn’t lose by offering a $12 per month subscription.
The fear for the company could be that, if they made another way to access their content, the cable companies would reduce their cut of the premium. But as Gans points out, in the US, where cable is the main form of broadband, most will keep a subscription of some sort anyway, and internationally, many have no option to get HBO at all.
The bigger problem is that HBO is far more intricately tied-up in the standard model of TV distribution than they might like to be. For one thing, it is in fact owned by Time Warner, the American broadcasting giant. For another, as Dan Frommer points out, there simply isn't the right infrastructure for such a thing to happen. HBO would have to support every major video game console, Mac OS, Windows, and probably Apple TV just to have a hope of getting on enough TV screens to even pay the money it cost to set up the system, let alone recoup the lost revenue from cancelled subscriptions.
And internationally the situation isn't much better. In the UK, Sky has forked out a reported £150m for a five-year exclusive with HBO; you can bet they wouldn't have paid nearly that much if it was available to anyone paying £10 online.
All of which means that if you are in the small (but likely over-represented in the New Statesman's readership) percentage of the UK population which watches barely any TV except for high-quality US imports, you are likely to have to carry on waiting or pirating for some time. Disruption may come to the market, but unless they are forced to, HBO just aren't going to take your moeny.
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