Italian politics is locked up in the stalemate resulting from the elections which ended yesterday, and market action seems to be reflecting voters’ uncertainty.

The yields on Italian 6-month bills sold in an auction today rose to 1.237%, up from 0.731% in an auction at the end of January. In the secondary market, Italian 10-year bond yields are trading 26.7 bps higher at the time of this writing, at 4.75%.

In Italy, none of the coalitions obtained a majority in the upper house and lower house needed to form a government. Center-right politician Berlusconi said today that while he rules out an alliance with current PM Monti, he is considering the idea of forming a coalition with the center-left. The center-right parties campaigned on the platform of undoing recent austerity measures and reform. Should the next government uptake some of the right’s anti-austerity agendas, it would probably be perceived by the Forex markets as Euro negative.

The Euro fell back below 1.3100 against the US Dollar yesterday as the exit polls and election results were released. Support may continue to be provided by the key 1.300 figure, which is also near a two month low. Resistance may be seen around 1.3200, by the 76.4% Fibonacci retracement of the rally from January 10 to the February high.

The Yen rose to a 3-week high against the US Dollar yesterday shortly after setting a new 2-year low near 95.00. There was no fundamental reason from Japan for the sudden USD/JPY decline, rather the drop accompanied a selloff in US equity markets.

USD/JPY continues to trade around 92.00 at the time of this writing, and opposition DPJ Party’s Ryu said today that he supports Kuroda as next BoJ governor. It was reported today that the government will announce the BoJ nominee to the parliament this Thursday.

There was no important economic release in today’s European session, but BoE Governor King said today that the Pound reflects the need to rebalance the UK Economy. King also said that the inflation target is not an impediment to recovery. There was no significant Forex reaction to the comments.

EURUSD Daily: February 26, 2013

Chart created by Benjamin Spier using Marketscope 2.0

— Written by Benjamin Spier, DailyFX Research. Feedback can be sent to bbspier@fxcm.com .

DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.Learn forex trading with a free practice account and trading charts from FXCM.
Source: Daily fx