The US can has been kicked

“Americans can always be counted on for doing the right thing… after they’ve tried everything else” – Sir Winston Churchill

The soap opera of the US government shutdown came to a temporary conclusion overnight as the House of Senate passed a bill to reopen the government and, as many had suggested, agreed to suspend the debt ceiling with the House voting 285-144 in favour.

There were no real surprises from what we had already learnt from the media. The deal allows the US Treasury to borrow as normal until early February with the Government funded until January 15th. The aim is that the House and Senate will agree a budget by December 15th and, although John Boehner vowed to continue to fight against the Presidents health care reforms, there was no mention of funding alterations to the initiative.

The market digested the news with an initial FX risk rally taking USD/JPY briefly onto the 99.00 handle but many had suspected the FX risk trade outcome was a ‘buy the rumour’, ‘sell the fact’ scenario. Attention now turns to the slew of US data releases and the impact this Government shutdown has had on the US economy. Rating agency, S&P, warned that the drama on Capitol Hill over the last three weeks could have shaved off Q4 US GDP by 0.6%. The suggestion this morning is that NFP data could be released as early as next Monday.

Today we see the release of the latest UK retail sales data following the robust jobs report yesterday, with the US session bringing us the weekly jobless claims data and the Philadelphia business survey.

EUR/USD

Supports 1.3470-1.3450-1.3380 | Resistance 1.3610-1.3650-1.3710

USD/JPY

Supports 98.30-98.00-97.75 | Resistance 99.10-99.35-99.80

GBP/USD

Supports 1.5910-1.5850-1.5800 | Resistance 1.6065-1.6115-1.6150