Nothing is random in the market.
The market gradually worked it's far lower making it seem as a day to exchange short.
Then money / or New York open / or buyers come in and moves it sharply higher to shake weak shorts and lure a few new longs.
Following the shakeout the market resumes as it were. To the downside.
May Be a news response.
Might be a last effort to move higher just to hit a place of distribution where many gamers were looking to enter short positions.
The top explanations here so far -- there's no way to provide reason for any move beyond buyers push it up and sellers push it down. It's a continuous struggle
News or not... it doesn't matter... same fundamentals apply...
Smart cash need the market to maintain a bull phase(e.g. buying) until they could sell from the quantity which they desire.
This is classic pump and dump to decode service.
Ahead of the spike up price, was hoping to move lower... but no response... so obviously someone was defending the lows for quite a while. So in order to draw those buyers out, whoever it is that wants the market price lower, starts to buy too, to put the price up... when it rises above previous resistance, they get sufficient people to pile on the buy orders on the breakout and they sell to them and sell more... and more... and more.... Until they absorb all the buyers quantity and then some, so the market price starts to drop... and as soon as they return to the service.... Nobody (or very few) is willing to buy any more since they did back at the high and they are sitting as a weak holder... or already took their loss, therefore the support now breaks without a fuss.
I've observed this pattern and behaviour quite often to be honest... it is not an isolated event.
Cheers -
fighter
The market phenomenon you are inquiring about can be described. Throughout the early portion of the session, there were far more buyers than sellers. There were more sellers than buyers. This is a happening you may see time .
The political news that afternoon was that the US government spying favorable foreign governments.
The stock market saw Apple fall.
You did not provide the currency pair for the example, so particular reasons for your move up and down can't be provided. If the dollar is among those currencies, then on this day that the news releases were the ADP NFP Report, Core Retails Sales Report, PPI Report, and Consumer Confidence Report. None of these were stellar reports for its dollar.
The patterns you're questioning are nearly always made by fundamentals, whether a scheduled news release, or some kind of oil issue.
Whilst cease searching is a valid concern, you'll see it even more prevalent during double top/bottoms and consolidations. In this circumstance it's all about tripping pending orders, not cease searching. From time to time, the market makers will spike the price in the incorrect direction before a news release to trigger pending orders on the incorrect side. Not certain that occurred here, because of releases, but it occasionally happens on NFP and in the market opens.
Additionally the market uses pivot levels to order a gentleman's agreement on how much price goes for, or against, a currency on a particular day. Obviously over time these pivot levels fall and you receive the breakout, but generally every day the levels are admired. This is necessary to protect against a country's currency from becoming bankrupted. It appears the spike must have struck the daily endurance, therefore a retrace was inevitable.
This can be normal trading using fundamentals to kickstart it, and technicals to control it.