Like other high beta currencies, the pound is finding support against the US dollar today as risk appetite makes an appearance on the FX market.

The pound is gaining as good news in Europe bolsters equities, as well as riskier currencies. There is some hope that the eurozone will be able to get through this, as French costs come down, a Greek appears almost worked out, and buyers are willing to take Spanish bonds.

Pound often moves up when equities do well, and right now equities are getting a boost from good news in the US, as well as in Europe. For now, it looks as though high beta currencies, like the pound and euro, are going to find good support. 

Hungarian talks with the IMF and EU reached stalemate as international lenders seem to keep a firm stance towards Budapest. According to comments after the meeting of Tamas Fellegi, Hungarian negotiator, and Christine Lagarde, IMF chief, there are several obstacles to the deal with IMF: Christine Lagarde’s top priority is probably the assurance of central bank’s independence.

Although the IMF does not directly push Hungary to abandon further changes in constitution, it wants to see trilateral agreement of IMF-EU-Hungary. That means the opinion of EU on all recent constitutional changes is going to be crucial. The European Commission should complete the analysis of new Hungarian laws tomorrow. Although Hungarian government declared it may consider to change the laws, if these are found to be in contradiction with Europeans norms and values, it is not going to be easy for the Hungarian PM to tackle such a severe political defeat.
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I stopped trading the USD/JPY last year because it was proving to be very difficult and the big price swings were becoming less and less frequent. Well the bad news is that it seems to have got even worse in 2012, and the USD/JPY pair looks as if it is on a life support machine at the moment.

For this reason I dont think anyone should be trading the USD/JPY pair at the moment. The price movements are just too small to make any real money from.

To demonstrate this point, just look at the weekly chart of the average true range (as indicated by the ATR indicator) of the USD/JPY pair since 2009.

You can see that the average weekly range was around 430 points just prior to 2009, and since then it has fallen lower and lower, and now stands at a pitiful 117 points. R

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There was a sharp downturn on the 13th in the very close vicinity to the home run price that currently exists on the EURUSD

You might want to keep an eye on this to see what the market makers decide to do.