August 18, 2016. GBP is the strongest. USD is the weakest.

The GBP is the strongest currency as North American traders enter for the day. UK retail sales were much stronger than expectations (+1.4% headline and +1.5% ex auto fuel vs 0.1% estimates). The USD is the weakest in the start of the day snapshot. In other news overnight, Australia employment was stronger (unemployment rate lower at 5.7% with 26.2K new jobs vs 10k est.). The AUD pairs rallied by on the report but have since given up some of their gains (GBPAUD is trading at the highs as the UK news trumps the Australian news I guess).

The ranges and changes show the GBP pairs have the largest bars (it is the GBP's day). The pairs have kept most of their gains/declines depending on which pair you are looking at of course. The AUD pairs have good ranges. The others? They are doing some GBP watching mostly.

It is Thursday, so the initial jobless claims for the week of August 13 will be released with expectations of 265K versus 266K last week. Also, the Philadelphia Fed business outlook for August released with expectations for a rise to 2.0 from -2.9. Canadas Foreign Securities purchase will be released (est 17.2B vs 14.73B last month). All will be released at 8:30 AM ET. At 10 AM, the conference Board's leading index for the month of July will be released with expectations of +0.3% versus +0.3% last month. NY Fed's Dudley will also speak. He was talking about the potential for a rate hike on Monday.