The ECB was on the wires in the morning session, essentially highlighting increased powers for the European Central bank (sole power to grant banking licenses and to close certain banks - could we be preparing for a central "bad bank" as we suggested as a solution? Are we creating the United State of Europe?
Various ECB commentators on the wires also highlighted that ECB intervention would only occur if the right conditions were met. It looks like we could be gearing up for a really good September.
On to the much-awaited Jackson Hole, which has been in build up for the whole week which ended up being "a damp fire cracker" (my favourite quote from Bloomberg), and we were a little surprised to see that we ground so much higher prior to the announcement. In our opinion Bernanke delayed QE3 which would point to USD strength however as you can see on the Investing.com site, analysts were pretty mixed in opinions so we bounced around a bit and overall stayed pretty steady.
The week was pretty light on trades:
- Long GBP/JPY continues to play out and is currently in the money, with the pair failing to break lower on Friday this position still holds.
- Quick breakout trade on the GBP/USD. I tend to like quick breakout trades when it is quiet, I only ever aim for 10 pips and trail my stop tightly but if you have your eyes peeled you could pick on of these up a day; nicest set-up I find is looking for inside bar trades on the 30 minute, break above, limit order to the previous support level, then trail your stop.
- NZD/CAD trade we took Thursday night with a similar signal formed on Friday looking for a kiwi short, currently just in the money. Tight stop on this one though.
- GBP/USD long trade from minor pin - closed this in profit close tot eh original T1 mark, however, with the push on Friday we should have left this trade alone. Often it is much better to let the market stop you out or hit your profit target as opposed to tinkering with the trade.
Don't forget to check out our week ahead post for how we will play the set-ups highlighted on Friday.
EUR/USD
What a day the euro had on Friday, started by pushing much higher prior to the Jackson Hole announcement, primarily due to the potential for the ECB to grant banking licenses. Following Jackson Hole we then saw some violent chop then a push higher in the dollar (therefore lower in the EUR/USD).
The euro seemed to reject higher prices on Friday, however this is a little disjointed with the other risk pairs and therefore could be the result of profit taking as opposed to anything else. Support came in below at just above the 1.24 level, we could see a move lower before a Bullish resumption. Key to this will be looking at the consolidation range and watching for breakouts from this.
GBP/USD
A strong push higher on Friday and a strong pin bar on the 4 hr chart. If we can break above the 1.59 handle we could then see a much larger move. Key an eye on the general risk-on and risk-off theme in September though, we are expecting it to be back with a vegence. We are Bullish risk at the moment but the fact that all risk pairs couldn't hold highs on Friday does make us a little tentative. 
AUD/USD
Technically, we are Bearish this pair as it didn't seem to move quite as much on Friday with the general risk-on theme. However, it did, like the pound put in a strong Bullish signal on Friday. Because of our current Bearish outlook, this is technically a counter trend signal.
USD/JPY
Our USD/JPY strategy holds for range bound trading, pair dropped lower today with shorts off of the upper blue line playing out well, to continue to the range bound trading we will be looking for long entries a little way above the lower blue line with stops below.
GBP/JPY
We still really like this position but would like to see a break and hold above 125.00 handle now. 
NZD/CAD
Another pin formation pointing to a Bearish resumption in this pair. With a tight stop this will either play out or get stopped out quite quickly as the NZD will charge on any risk-on trading. These tend to be pretty nice set-ups emotionally. 