The most important news for the 1st of March, 2010. All times are GMT, of course.
01:00am CNY Chinese Manufacturing PMI
07:30am AUD Commodity Prices y/y
All day GBP Halifax HPI m/m
09:30am GBP Manufacturing PMI
13:30 CAD GDP m/m
13:30 USD Core PCE Price Index m/m
15:00 USD ISM Manufacturing PMI
EU governments are putting together a possible rescue package for Greece as they demand it first steps up efforts to cut the bloc’s biggest budget deficit, Bloomberg reports.
“Greece won’t be allowed to sink on the condition it respects its commitments to stabilize its budget,” French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told Europe 1 radio today. “We have a certain number of proposals in the euro zone, involving either private partners or public partners or both.”
What does that mean for us forex traders? Possibly (a short-term) a flight back to riskier assets. Bullish on NZD/JPY, etc. But still at 1 am (GMT) on March the 1st we’ve got the Chinese PMI coming out. If it’s lower than expected there might be a sell off in NZD and AUD.
This trade felt like an ice-cold shower. 
I got stopped out @ 61.64 at a loss of 30 pips at the US New Homes Sales data release at 15:00 GMT. Really amazing stuff – NZD/JPY just plummeted about 40-45 pips, and then within another 20 minutes it went up some 65 pips (of, course, following DJIA’s action). It’s one of the best trades I’ve ever taken. Ha ha! Yeah, right! It teaches humility; you are brutally reminded that forex is not your business; it’s Big Shots’ business, and they know where your Stop Loss and everybody elses’ Stop Losses are (logically, a little bit below the previous support, right?), they have huge resources to move the market temporarily, and they go for it, and some more. The only way to profit is by going with the flow of the big shots. Gotta learn this. I’m sure that trading on “Friday, last day of the month” is also a big “no – no”.
The US economy grew at a 5.9% yearly rate in the Q4, more than the government reported last month. This reflectsg stronger business investment and more contribution from inventories.
USD turned down late in Thursday’s session after touching a nine-month high against EUR.
USD was favored amid fears that Greece could see a further downgrade in its credit rating, something that would complicate the debt-troubled nation’s efforts to meet its financing obligations. The EUR/JPY saw its 1-year low yesterday.
