ForexLive North American wrap: Looking through the eye of the hurricane

US initial jobless claims 439K vs 375K exp Philly Fed -10.7 vs +2.0 exp Empire Fed -5.22 vs -8.0 exp US CPI 2.2% vs 2.1% exp Canadian Sept manufacturing sales +0.4% vs +0.3% exp Fed's Lacker opposes more bond purchases Lacker sees +3% growth if grand bargain reached on US deficit Fed's Fisher calls Congress 'parasitic wastrels' Spanish FinMin: Spain has no need of money from the IMF Introducing OSI, your newest Eurocrisis acronym Israel-Palestine warring continues Irish FinMin still holds out hope for ESM recapitalization of the Irish banks Bernanke says housing revivial faces obstacles EUR leads, JPY lags S&P 500 down 0.2% to 1353 EUR/JPY was the best performer for the second day as FX completely disregards signals from the US stock market. The yen fell after LDP leader Abe talked about unlimited QE and other new tools to fight deflation. The market took the US economic data with a grain of salt, due to the effects of Hurricane Sandy, which will skew data through year-end. EUR/USD nudged through 1.2800 but rumored stops weren't tripped and the pair drifted back to 1.2760. The clearer line of resistance is the 200-dma at 1.2811. USD/JPY stalled ahead of rumored large reverse knock out options at 81.50, edging back to 81.18. AUD/USD was weak in Asia and Europe but stabilized above 1.03 in US trading, closing out the day near 1.0329. Gold was flushed to $1705 but has bounced to $1714, losing $10 on the day.