financial institutions Archives - The Industry Spread

Saxo Capital Markets Appoints Joanne Page as its New Chief Financial Officer

January 16, 2019 by Karthik Subramanian Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: AxiomSL, banks, brokerage, Capital Markets, David Weber, Diya Patel, financial institutions, financial services, risk management, Saxo Capital Markets

Denmark based retail FX broker which was recently acquired by China’s Geely Group has announced the appointment of Joanne Page as new Chief Financial Officer of Saxo Capital Markets UK. The appointment was made in December 2018, and she succeeds Diya Patel, who has left Saxo to pursue new opportunities.

Diya Patel was CFO of Saxo Capital since October 2016, and also has been CFO for Alpari and GKFX. Joanne Page has over two decades of experience in the financial services industry and has worked with some of the top financial institutions like Royal and Sun Alliance, City Index, Marex financial, ETX Capital and Capital index in various positions including Financial controller, COO, CAO, and CEO. She has been CEO at the ETX Capital Gibraltar and has worked to make the broker’s operation at British overseas territory fully functional.

AxiomSL Appoints David Weber as COO and CFO, Promotes Eyal Amsalem in the role of Chief Administrative Officer

AxiomSL, the provider enterprise-wide solutions for regulatory reporting has announced the appointment of David Weber on the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

David Weber replaces Eyal Amsalem, who has been the CFO of AxiomSL since 2008 and is now moving to the role of Chief Administrative Officer and will manage the responsibility to manage the global presence of AxiomSL in North America, EMEA, APC, and Latin America.

Weber, an experienced market professional with his career spanning across multiple sectors. He joins AxiomSL from Charles River Development (CRD), investment management and trading solution provider and where he has been the CFO since 2006. With him, he brings over three decades of experience in financial management and operations.

Prior to CRD, he has been at Sybase Inc. and has held various roles including Vice President of Worldwide and International Field Operations Finance; Senior Director of Professional Services; and Director of Operations.

Commenting on the appointment, Alex Tsigutkin, the Founder and CEO of AxiomSL said:

“We’re thrilled to welcome Dave to AxiomSL as the new COO and CFO during this important expansion period.

“Dave’s unique experience and skilled leadership in the financial technology sector is a great addition to our management team. His deep financial, operational and strategic expertise will enable him to immediately make a strong contribution and drive continued momentum as we enter this phase of growth.”

Also commenting, David Weber said:

“I’m honoured and excited to join AxiomSL, an organization with an outstanding reputation as a global leader of regulatory-reporting, risk and data management solutions. The company’s growth over the last few years has been exceptional, and I’m incredibly energized to help lead AxiomSL in its journey to grow, scale and meet the market demand.”

ICE’s Bakkt Crypto Exchange Platform Inks First Acquisition Agreement, To Buy Certain Asset of Chicago-Based Rosenthal Collins Group

January 15, 2019 by Karthik Subramanian Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: BAKKT, Blockchain, brokerage, CBOE, CME, Cryptocurrencies, Cryptocurrency exchange, financial institutions, financial services, ICE, investment, regulators, Rosenthal Collins Group

Intercontinental Exchange’s cryptocurrency platform Bakkt has signed the company’s first acquisition agreement. Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler made the announcement on her official medium blog. The cryptocurrency startup will buy certain assets of Chicago-based futures commission merchant — Rosenthal Collins Group (RCG).

Rosenthal Collins Group established nearly 100 years ago has also sold its customer business of the futures brokerage to London-headquartered commodities broker Marex Spectron. RCG has recently expanded its client base to 14,000 accounts while deepening its introducer broker network.

Bakkt’s acquisition of RCG’s asset is the latest push towards positioning itself towards more regulated markets. According to Bakkt CEO, the RCG’s system and expertise would improve the company’s risk management and treasury operations. This acquisition is in line with other US cryptocurrency operators including Coinbase which puts them in a firmer regulatory footing with regulators. It further helps the crypto firm to position themselves up to offer a broader range of crypto-based financial products.

Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler stated in her blog:

“It will enhance our risk management and treasury operations with systems and expertise. Other aspects of the transaction will contribute to our regulatory, AML/KYC and customer service operations as we help enable digital asset acceptance by bringing more choice and control to buyers and sellers,”

Georgia based ICE last month said that the Bakkt would launch the first physically delivered Bitcoin futures in the last week of January. But now it has been delayed for the third time with no specific date of launch. The initial launch was set for November 2018.

Other established exchange like Cboe and CME offers Bitcoin futures but are cash settled, in which the actual cryptocurrency doesn’t change hands.

Euronext Publishes Offer Document for its all Cash-Offer to Acquire Oslo Børs VPS Holding ASA

January 14, 2019 by Karthik Subramanian Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: Capital Markets, economy, Euronext, financial institutions, financial services, FX trading, NOK, Oslo Børs VPS, trading platform

The pan-European exchange, Euronext has published the offer document for its all-cash offer to acquire outstanding and as well as issued shares of Oslo Børs VPS Holding ASA (“Oslo Børs VPS”). OsloBørs VPS is an exchange and central securities depository operator.

Euronext is offering NOK 6.24 billion ($730.74 million) to acquire the shares, which translated to NOK 145 ($16.98) per share, which is 32 per cent at a premium on the Oslo Børs VPS’s closing price on December 17, 2018. When measured against the company’s 3-month volume-weighted average share price, the offer is 34 per cent higher, the statement reads.

And further, each shareholder that accepts the Euronext’s offer price will receive an interest payment on the offer price equal to 6 per cent p.a from the date they accept the offer and conditions of the offers are fulfilled. The offer date starts today and will be open till February 19th, 2019.

Oslo Børs has requested its shareholders to wait for the recommendation of its board, which is expected by the end of February at the latest. Per Eikrem, a spokesman for Oslo Børs VPS said: “We don’t yet know which offer may ultimately be the best. We’re trying to find that out now.”

As per Euronext, if the offer is accepted, then it will fully commit on developing Oslo Børs VPS as a stock exchange and central securities depository. Stéphane Boujnah, the CEO and Chairman of the Managing Board of Euronext said:

“If the offer is accepted, Oslo Børs VPS will benefit from the largest European liquidity pool, Euronext’s cutting edge technology and innovation capabilities, and access to new asset classes, tools and markets. Oslo Børs VPS would maintain its identity and integrity within Euronext’s decentralised model, while the CSD VPS would keep its operational independence to serve the Norwegian investor community, in an integrated framework of governance and supervision.”

Further added: “The combination would be a major milestone towards Euronext’s vision of building a consistent pan-European marketplace offering the best-in-class capital markets services.”

Goldman Sachs Taps Former JPMorgan Data Engineering Head, Luc Teboul as its Managing Director

January 11, 2019 by Karthik Subramanian Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: Blockchain, brokerage, Concordium Foundation, Cryptocurrencies, financial institutions, Goldman Sachs, investment, JP Morgan, KYC, NASDAQ, public blockchains, risk management

Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street giant and leading global investment banking have hired Luc Teboul, former Data Engineering Head of JPMorgan as its Managing Director. Luc Teboul is a well known in the field of machine learning applications in the investment banking space.

As per his LinkedIn profile, Luc Teboul will supervise the bank’s team handling its consumer and commercial banking technology. He might also look after the development of Marcus, the bank’s proprietary consumer lending solution. Mr Teboul has held similar roles in his earlier job at JPMorgan and was in charge of its corporate and investment bank data strategy, information architecture, and data reservoir.

For Teboul, this is the second stint with Goldman Sachs, as prior to JPMorgan, he has served more than eight years with the bank as an Executive Director. Teboul is graduated from Université René Descartes in Paris and did his masters in computer and information sciences and support services from ENSIIE (École Nationale Supérieure d’Informatique pour l’Industrie et l’Entreprise), one of the top schools in Paris.

Concordium Secures Former NASDAQ Europe vice chairman Hans-Ole Jochumsenhas in the Advisory Board

Concordium Foundation, a Swiss non-profit working on blockchain development has hired Former NASDAQ Europe vice chairman Hans-Ole Jochumsenhas in the advisory board.

Mr Jochumsenhas’s main job is to guide the firm to maintain its compliance with regulatory frameworks, looking after taxation issues, KYC practices, and transaction provenance. Jochumsenhas is a big supporter of blockchain technology in the finance space and believes that it will drastically reduce the cost and time of global transactions. He was also a part of Nasdaq’s several blockchain based projects in his tenure.

While speaking to Coindesk, Jochumsenhas said:

“Many people forget that what we see with the financial institutions is that you have a very complicated setup, every county has its own approach, and if you need to do something globally, it’s extremely complicated, and even if in the end the task is solved, somebody has to pay for it, and it’s the customer…In Concordium, there is a great vision for something that financial industry worldwide needs,”

Jochumsenhas has a long career in the financial industry and has retired only a year ago as the vice chairman at NASDAQ Europe after almost a decade with the company. Concordium which is founded by ex-CEO of Saxo bank Lars Seier Christensen is developing a cryptocurrency with built-in compliance function and its beta launch is scheduled for q3, 2019.

Christensen said: “As a first mover with strong focus and expertise in this area (ID/KYC), we are not late, but really among the first to the real game, one that has not started yet, because early generations of blockchains and cryptocurrencies did not achieve real business use in spite of all the hype,” Christensen told Coindesk. “So the next era is beginning now and this will be the time when the real potential of public blockchains will finally begin to unfold.”

FINRA Board Looks for Diversity

January 11, 2019 by Michael Volpe Leave a Comment Filed Under: Feature Articles Tagged: Capital Markets, economy, FCA, financial institutions, Financial markets, FINRA, FINRA 360, monetary policy, NASD, NYSE, regulators, risk management

In the coming year, board recruitment and diversity will be critical for FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Marcia Asquith is FINRA’s executive vice president of Board and External Relations, and she was the latest guest on FINRA’s podcast, Unscripted.

Asquith talked about some of the most important board accomplishments of 2018 and talked about the goals for 2019.

The FINRA board is made up of ten industry governors, twelve public governors, and Robert Cooke, the CEO of FINRA.

Asquith said public governors are those folks who are outside the industry.

Within the industry, the board includes three small firm governors, one mid-size firm governor, three large firm governors.

Each of those governors is elected from their peer group: be it small, mid, or large firms.

There all also three more industry board members who are appointed.

A small firm has less than one-hundred and fifty brokers, mid-size firms have 150-499 brokers, and large firms have more than that.

Asquith noted, “In 2019 we’re going to lose four board members.”

Asquith continued, “We’re losing some diversity; we’re losing three women in this class, and we’re also looking at racial and geographic diversity.”

The governors from outside the industry have included all sorts of executives and even one president, Asquith noted.

FINRA was formed in 2007 when the regulatory arms of the NASD and the NYSE merged, but before that, the NASD board included Gerald Ford, the 38^th President of the United States.

When asked if former Presidents Barack Obama and George Bush would be considered, Asquith joked, “We’re very particular, but we would talk to them.”

Jimmy Carter, the 39^th President, and Bill Clinton, the 42^nd President, are the other two living former Presidents.

Asquith said that whereas the CEO, Robert Cooke, and other FINRA executives are responsible for the day to day operations of FINRA, the board’s job is to oversee the executives.

In that role, Asquith said that in 2018, the board emphasized overseeing FINRA 360.

“2018 certainly was the year of ensuring that FINRA 360 and the progress that we made through that initiative was institutionalized.”

FINRA 360 began in early 2017; it is “a multi-year initiative to process and act upon feedback about how FINRA could do better. Cook has solicited feedback at every turn – internally, from FINRA member firms, from investors and investor advocates and other stakeholders.” According to FINRA’s site.

Cooke was on Unscripted talking about FINRA 360 in November 2017.

Going forward, Asquith said, “In 2019, the board will be focused a lot on board recruitment.”

PrimeXM CEO Cristian Vlasceanu Leaves After Organizational Restructuring, Founder Clive Diethelm Steps in

January 8, 2019 by Karthik Subramanian Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: brokerage, Brokers, Capital Markets, Cboe Global Markets, economy, financial institutions, financial services, financial stability, investment, PrimeXM, trading platform, trading volume

PrimeXM, the pioneer in technology solutions for the finance industry is going through a restructuring process of its business operations and had made some major changes to personnel.

The company has relieved its current CEO Cristian Vlasceanu from his role in December and PrimeXM’s founder, Clive Diethelm, has stepped in to take his place. While speaking to FinanceMagnates, Diethelm said:

“We’d like to thank Cristian for his time with us and wish him the best for the future. Looking forward, we have built up a strong base of operations in Cyprus and are making a lot of headway in China.”

Cristian Vlasceanu was appointed as CEO in February 2016, and under him, the company has expanded tremendously into China and has set up offices in Shanghai and also has an office in Shenzhen. The company is also increasing support staff for its Chinese clients.

In 2018, the company moved its headquarters to a new office in Cyprus and centralised its development team there. Alongside, PrimeXM also managed to secure two important audits the ISAE 3000 third-party assurance standard and the Penetration and Vulnerability Assessment for protection against security attacks which will be done by PwC.

George Swann, Head of Global Infrastructure at PrimeXM spoke to FinanceMagnates on the issue:

“At PrimeXM, we have always maintained the highest security throughout our operations. Hiring PwC was a further means for us to give independent assurance on our processes and controls to our customers, auditors and regulators. Just like the ISO 27001, the ISAE3000 is proof of the high quality of our services.”

Cboe Global Markets Promotes Chris Isaacson and Eric Crampton in Senior Management Team

Cboe Global Markets has announced the appointment of Chris Isaacson, existing Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Chris Isaacson takes over the chief operating role from Chris Concannon and will report to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ed Tilly.

The company has also promoted Eric Crampton, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Software Engineering as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Crampton will directly report to Chris Isaacson. Both the appointments will be effective from January 14th.

Ed Tilly commented on the moves:

The role of COO is a natural progression for Chris Isaacson, given his track record of success with the company and the importance we place on leading-edge technology and relentless execution. He is widely regarded as one of the top technology and operations professionals in the industry and is uniquely qualified to lead our daily operations during this next phase of our growth.

Eric Crampton is a world-class financial technology professional who has been instrumental in the integration of Cboe and Bats. Working alongside Chris, he and his team are successfully executing our technology integration, creating a common world-class trading platform across our equities, options and futures exchanges, which when completed, will be a game-changer for Cboe and its customers. On behalf of everyone at Cboe, we congratulate Chris and Eric on their promotions and know that they will continue to deliver value to our colleagues, customers, and shareholders.

Exness Adds Nicholas Shamtanis as its New Chief Sales Officer, Will be Based Out of Company’s Kuala Lumpur Officer

January 7, 2019 by Karthik Subramanian Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: brokerage, Capital Markets, CFTC, easyMarkets, economy, Exness, financial institutions, financial services, FX, investment, trading platform

Exness, the retail forex broker has secured Nicolas Shamtanis as its new Chief Sales Officer (CSO), this month. The announcement was made public by Nicholas through his LinkedIn profile.

This new position will see Nicolas Shamtanis relocate to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and will look after the broker’s Asia Pacific Region. Mr. Shamtanis was based in Cyprus in his entire career. He has joined Exness on January 2nd, 2019, and is currently working from Limassol and will soon relocate to Kuala Lumpur.

Brokerages based in Europe are now more focusing on expanding its footprint to Asia Pacific region and other regions due to stiff regulatory conditions back home which is limiting its growth. Mr. Shamtanis joins Exness from easyMarkets, a CySEC regulated broker. He had worked with easyMarkets for more than a decade, starting his tenure at Jube 2007. He originally joined the firm as Senior Dealer and has held important senior roles including Chief Business Development Officer, Chief Client Retention Officer, and varied sales-based roles.

Nicholas Shamtanis has studied and graduated from Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm, a university in Nuremberg, Germany from 2001 to 2006. He has obtained a degree in International Business with a focus on Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services.

Exness has strong exposure in the Asia Pacific region with its entry in the Chinese market, some ten years back, and Mr. Shamantis appointment as CSO in Kuala Lumpur signifies how the broker deepens its presence in the region.

Pre IPO Swap Appoints Joseph Gelet as Chief Technology Officer

The US-based Investment firm, Pre IPO swap has announced the appointment of Joseph Gelet as the company’s Chief Technology Officer. The appointment has been made effective immediately his responsibilities include oversight of Pre IPO Swap’s infrastructure technology and a senior role in vision and strategy.

Joseph will be working closely with the company’s client base which includes accredited investors only to deliver long-term value to their investments. He is joining the firm from Bloc10 Tech, a blockchain development firm founded by wall street companies.

Prior to this role, Joseph Gelet has served as President of Elite E Services FX which develops FX strategies and technologies. He joined the firm in 2002 and has served many important positions in different business segments including managed accounts, investment services, quantitative systems, and FX advisory services.

Gelet has also worked with Fortress Capital, an asset management company with over $40 billion assets under management. He joined Fortress in 2015 as Vice President of its Forex division.

Pre IPO Swap offers institutional investors early access to privately traded shares in established companies before they go public.

Maybank Taps Former CMC Markets Executive Alex Maslin as Sales Manager

January 3, 2019 by Karthik Subramanian Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: brokerage, Capital Markets, economy, EUR-USD, financial institutions, financial stability, FX trading, risk management, trading platform

Maybank Kim Eng is an investment banking and brokerage division of Malaysian bank Maybank, which is South East Asia’s fourth-largest bank by asset.

Alex Maslin, a long time institutional sales veteran and serving two of the largest FX brokers in the UK for nearly a decade has moved to Maybank Kim Eng. Maybank Kim Eng is an investment banking and brokerage division of Malaysian bank Maybank. Maslin is a very familiar figure and prominent professional within London’s large CFD and FX.

He will be assuming the role of Maybank’s Prime Services Sales Manager. The London-based Maybank Kim provides full prime brokerage service to hedge funds, family offices, proprietary traders, and asset managers with managed account platforms.

Alex in his role at Maybank’s prime brokerage business serves a client segment that trade in different markets and covers securities financing, fixed income, equities and leveraged forex. Alex Maslin has over a decade of experience in FX Sales and joins Maybank from CMC Markets ‎‎(LSE: CMCX), where he served as Institutional Sales Manager for nearly four years.

Before joining CMC Markets, Maslin was with IG Group and had worked with the company for over five years. He began in tenure at IG Group in 2005 and had served in the telephone dealing for spread betting and CFD products on equities, futures, options and forex, dealing with retail and professional clients.

In the initial days of his career, he has also served at MF Global as sales and account manager for retail, professional and institutional clients for a period of six months. His experience in sales positions with the FCA regulated firms has likely to have influenced Maybank to hire him and lead the FCA-regulated prime brokerage business.

Maybank’s parent company is South East Asia’s fourth-largest bank by assets and has a global network of 2,400 branches spread over 20 countries with over 45,000 employees.

Deutsche Börse And Boerse Stuttgart Report 2018 Trading Volumes

January 3, 2019 by Ricardo Esteves Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: banks, Boerse Stuttgart, Capital Markets, CME group, deutsche boerse group, financial institutions, Financial markets, financial services, investors, risk management, trading, trading platform, Xetra

Deutsche Börse has announced its cash market achieved an order book turnover of €1.72 trillion in 2018. The figure is the highest trading volume since 2008 and an increase of 17 percent compared to the previous year, €1.47 trillion.

The order book turnover is attributable to Xetra, with €1.57 trillion, Börse Frankfurt, with €40.11 billion, and Tradegate Exchange, with €105.81 billion.

Trading volumes in December 2018 amounted to €116.1 billion, compared to €118.0 billion in the previous year. Of this amount, €106.6 billion was attributable to Xetra, €2.7 billion to the Börse Frankfurt venue and €6.8 billion to the Tradegate Exchange. The average daily volume on Xetra in December was €6.3 billion (17 trading days), compared with €5.6 billion in the previous year (19 trading days).

The most traded shares on Xetra in 2018 were Bayer AG with €75.43 billion (DAX index), Osram Licht AG with €7.41 billion (MDAX index), Puma SE with €1.92 billion (SDAX index) and Wirecard AG with €26.16 billion (TecDAX index).

Trading volumes on Boerse Stuttgart amounted to around EUR 71.2 billion in 2018, which is a drop of 11 percent when compared to 2017. Equities trading was responsible for EUR 15.6 billion, with German equities contributing with around EUR 11.2 billion. The most traded shares were Daimler AG, BASF SE and Allianz SE. In regard to international equities, Amazon shares accounted for the biggest share of turnover, followed by Apple and Alibaba.

In May 2018, GAIN Capital Holdings sold its institutional business division, GTX ECN, an institutional platform for trading foreign exchange to Deutsche Borse’s 360T for a total consideration of $100 million. The move marked Deutsche Borse’s continued expansion motive in the Fx space and institutional level FX trading businesses to exchanges.

Boerse Stuttgart, the second largest in the country and the ninth largest in Europe, confirmed its leading position in securitised derivatives on the German market. The trading volume in this asset class exceeded EUR 33 billion. A turnover figure of more than EUR 19.2 billion was recorded for leveraged products in 2018 – 19 percent more than in the previous year. Turnover from investment products came to over EUR 13.8 billion.

Exchange-traded products generated turnover of almost EUR 9.9 billion and bond trading had an order book turnover of around EUR 11.2 billion, with EUR 8.2 billion being corporate bonds. Stuttgart is responsible for 56 percent of Germany’s corporate bond trading.

Global Stocks on late Santa Rally

December 27, 2018 by Nikolas Papas Leave a Comment Filed Under: Market News - European Open Tagged: asian equities, Capital Markets, economy, EUR-USD, financial institutions, foreign exchange, monetary policy, santa rally

Santa arrived a little later than expected this year. Asian equities followed the Wall Street Santa rally. In Tokyo, Nikkei 225 index rebounded impressively gaining 3.7% after heavy losses (more than 5%) on Tuesday. Hang Seng Index which reopened after the Christmas holiday rose 0.6 percent, while the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.5%. The S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 103.4 points or 1.9% to 5596.3 points, its best performance since November 2016. The price of oil soared on Wednesday, with Brent Oil rallying 8.8%, its biggest gain since 2016. The price rise was driven in part by positive market sentiment and comments from Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak who said he saw a more stable and balanced oil market. While yesterday’s positive price action is definitely a positive sign, it’s still too early to conclude whether the market correction is over or more downside is yet to come. Such rallies are not uncommon in troubled times, and we have experienced many of them in past bear markets.

On the Lookout: Bloomberg reports that Asian markets are bracing an expected upswing in the rate of debt defaults as higher refinancing costs push high-risk borrowers out of the market. “We are setting up the business on the premise that we will see an increase in defaults in 2019,” said John Batchelor, Asia head for corporate finance and restructuring at the firm, adding that the company is looking to increase its headcount in Hong Kong and China. According to the latest Reuters survey, a majority of Germany’s leading industry groups expect weak growth around 1.5% next year but do not see a recession. US President Trump’s ‘America First’ policies, which is a likely headwind for German exporters.

Analysts at Standard Chartered are estimating Singapore’s Q4 GDP growth likely to print 2.2% y/y, similar to Q3, and capped by high base effects. “Our GDP growth tracker suggests upside risk to our Q4 GDP growth forecast. Our tracker is more reliant on readily available externally driven activity data, such as IP, which is still growing at a faster pace (albeit moderating) than domestically oriented sectors. We are cautious about being overly optimistic, as the services-sector recovery is tenuous. We expect growth to moderate in 2019, as external demand has likely peaked.”

Trading Perspective: Gold’s strong bullish momentum is still intact with prices regaining the $1270 level. US government shutdown and President Trump’s criticism of the Fed supports the precious metal. Technically, immediate resistance will be found at 1279 previous daily high and then the 1300 psychological round figure. On the flipside, 1263, yesterday’s low will be the first support.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yields are down -1.10% below the 2.77% mark, offering some fresh trading impetus to the non-interest bearing and traditional safe-haven gold.

Euro bulls are in control today in early European session as La Repubblica, reported that the Italian parliament is said to vote on the budget by Dec 29th, maintaining the deadline for the budget approval that is by end of this year. The pair is currently trading at the daily high around 1.14, leaving behind the lows at 1.1351 and regained the 50-hour moving average. Bulls are now targeting 1.1422 pre-Christmas high and then 1.1486 the previous week high. EUR/USD will find immediate support at 1.1343 and 1.13 which is the previous week low.

USD/JPY is facing selling pressure, and the price is hovering close to the daily low at 110.82. Annualized Tokyo CPI for December is forecasted to come in at 1%, while the Japanese Unemployment Rate is expected to tick down to 2.3% from 2.4%. Annualized Retail Trade for November is forecasted to decline to 2.2% from 3.5%, and Japan’s preliminary Industrial Production for December is expected to decline sharply by -1.9% from the previous month’s 2.9% reading. The pair will find support at 110.13 yesterdays low. 111.41 is the immediate resistance, and more supply will emerge at 112.30 — previous monthly low.