After a unanimous vote for a 25 basis point hike in May to 5.50 percent and even some discussion of a 50 basis point hike, outlooks on the Bank of England’s next move have been broadly mixed.

The US housing sector – the Achilles’ heel of the economy - continues to be a much-discussed issue by Fed members as it has the potential to prolong the recent slowdown in expansion.

Whereas yesterday’s housing data was certainly siding with the bears, Tuesday’s round of starts and building permits gave little to either side of the market. Now, with the docket clearing out expectations for event risk later in the week, the market is turning to technicals and interest rates for direction.

Currency technical analyst Jamie Saettele analyzes the Japanese yen against the Canadian dollar, Swiss franc, and New Zealand dollar.

Two weeks ago, the EUR/USD broke below a support line drawn off of the October 2006 and January 2007 lows. The pair has come back to test the other side of the line as resistance.

The ZEW survey of German investor confidence unexpectedly declined to 20.3 from market forecasts of 29.0 as higher interest rates, higher energy costs and higher exchange rates combined to dampen enthusiasm amongst participants.

Professional system trader Art Collins shares his daily biases in the index, bonds and currency futures markets for June 19.

Todd Gordon is looking at going long the US dollar at critical support levels in the EUR/USD and USD/JPY.

The prospects of a rate hike to 4.50 percent by the Bank of Canada in July has drawn quite a bit of attention by the markets after the central bank’s core CPI measure surged to a four-year high of 2.5 percent in April.

Derek Frey provides weekly market commentary on currencies for the week of June 18.