Forex: Thursday's review

Thursday the U.S. dollar significantly dropped as late Wednesday Moody's and Chinese ratings agency Dagong both put the US AAA credit rating on negative watch.
“The fear of the U.S. downgrade has led to a swift move to the safe haven currency,” said Sebastien Galy, a foreign-exchange analyst at Societe Generale in London.
Euro strengthened versus US dollar amid the weakeness of the latter. Despite Greece's credit rating was cut three levels by Fitch Ratings from B+ to CCC, any downgrade in the eurozone has increasingly less impact than debt problems in the US.
It should be noted that yesterday Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, raised the possibility of a third bout of quantitative easing – or “QE3”, that the central bank is ready to provide additional economic stimulus if needed.
The Swiss franc reached to record highs against the dollar, euro and the pound amid concerns about credit ratings of U.S and Greece. Today Fitch Ratings has affirmed Switzerland's ratings at 'AAA'. Its outlook remains stable.
New Zealand’s dollar strengthened to a record after a government report showed the economy grew faster than expected. The New Zealand economy has released today its house price index for the month of June which increased 1.3%, compared with a previous drop by 1.8% in May. This fact signaled the nation is recovering from a deadly earthquake in February.

EUR/USD printed highs on $1.4280 before retreated to $1.4150. After some consolidation rate set stable around $1.4110.

GBP/USD rose from $1.6185 before held within the $1.6090/$1.6150 range.

USD/JPY rose from Y78.45 to Y79.60. But rate failed to set above and retreated to Y78.90/00.

Today's focus in Europe will be on EU Trade balance.
In US investors will digest US CPI for June at 12:30 GMT. The same time NY Fed Empire State manufacturing index comes.
At 13:15 GMT US Industrial production will be released.
At 13:55 preliminary Michigan sentiment index is due to come.