EURUSD Regains 1.29; Canadian CPI Next

EU summit continues; German Ifo improves; UK mortgage approvals rose; Spain already prefunding 2013. Market turns to Canadian CPI.

The EU economic summit in Brussels continues today. Market participants still assume that the long term EU budget deal will be reached today but there was chatter that German chancellor Merkel suggested that she doubted an agreement would be reached today.

The common currency pushed higher after all the November Ifo results were above expectations and better than in October. The business climate rose to 101.4 from October's 100.0; the current assessment improved to 108.1 from 107.2 and the expectations sub index increased to 95.2 from 93.2. The final reading of German Q3 GDP was unrevised at 0.2% q/q and 0.4% y/y. EURUSD rose back above 1.29 and EURGBP moved nearly to 0.81.

In other news, UK mortgage approvals rose to 33K in October from previous 31.5K and S&P downgraded three Spanish banks and said that negative outlooks on banks reflects the likelihood of further sovereign downgrade.

According to MNI, EZ sovereign issuance so far this year totaled EUR 797.23 bln which is around 99.7% of the total needs. Belgium, Slovakia and Spain are now pre-funding for 2013.

The sole item on the data calendar for the US session is Canadian CPI that is due at 8:30 am ET and that is expected to slow to 1.0% in October from previous 1.2% on annual basis. Core inflation is seen at 1.2% from 1.3% y/y. Liquidity will be thin as US firms are operating on skeleton staff after yesterday's Thanksgiving holidays.

Patrik Urban