Forex Previews

Bank of Japan less optimistic on outlook; keeps alive hopes of further easing

Posted on March 15, 2016 at 11:23 am GMT

The Bank of Japan decided to keep monetary policy unchanged at today’s meeting as expected, holding the interest rate on some current accounts held at the Bank at -0.1%. The decision follows confusion and criticism of the Bank’s negative interest rate policy since its introduction in January. The Bank had strongly signalled at its January policy meeting that it will “cut the interest rate further into negative territory if judged as necessary”. This was also reiterated by the central bank [..]

Week Ahead – After ECB, attention turns to Fed; SNB, BoE and BoJ also in focus

Posted on March 11, 2016 at 1:31 pm GMT

It will be another busy week for central banks over the next seven days as the US Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan and Bank of England hold their policy meetings. The Swiss National Bank will be meeting too next week, while major data out of Japan, the US and the UK will also be eyed. It should be a quiet start to the week with Japanese machinery orders to be the main data on Monday. Machinery orders in January are [..]

ECB unleashes more stimulus as it cuts all three rates and expands QE

Posted on March 10, 2016 at 4:01 pm GMT

The European Central Bank took markets by surprise by delivering a series of stimulus measures at today’s policy meeting. While the majority of economists were expecting a 10bps cut in the deposit rate and some form of modification to the asset purchase program, the ECB went further and reduced its three key interest rates, as well as increase the size of its bond purchases. At today’s announcement, the ECB cut its main refinancing rate from 0.05% to 0.00%, a move [..]

UK manufacturing rebounds in January; pound firms

Posted on March 9, 2016 at 12:28 pm GMT

UK industrial and manufacturing output rebounded in January following a slump towards the end of last year. Manufacturing output expanded for the first time in four months, jumping by a better-than-expected 0.7% month-on-month rate, against expectations of a 0.2% rate. Overall industrial production also posted positive growth after contracting by almost 2% in the prior two months combined. Total production output rose by 0.3% month-on-month in January, slightly below estimates of a 0.4% increase. On an annual basis, manufacturing output [..]

Chinese exports shrink at fastest pace since 2009

Posted on March 8, 2016 at 12:59 pm GMT

Trade figures out of China today failed to quell fears that the slowdown in the world’s second largest economy could be getting deeper. Chinese exports to the rest of the world slumped by 25.4% year-on-year in February, far worse than estimates of a 12.5% drop. This was the fastest decline since 2009 at the height of the financial crisis. Imports also continued to shrink, declining by 13.8% year on-year against estimates of a 10% decrease. The trade balance halved from [..]

Kuroda backtracks on more Bank of Japan easing for now

Posted on March 7, 2016 at 12:54 pm GMT

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda signalled on Monday that the Bank is in no rush to cut rates further into negative territory. Kuroda said at a speech in Tokyo that the Bank of Japan will want to monitor the effects of negative interest rates which it introduced in January before cutting them further. The remarks point to a bit of a turnaround for Kuroda who had been indicating since the January decision that rates are likely to be reduced [..]

Dollar mixed after strong jobs gain as wage growth disappoints

Posted on March 4, 2016 at 3:40 pm GMT

The US economy added 242k jobs in February according to the latest non-farm payrolls reports, beating consensus estimates of 195k jobs. Adding to the strong data was an upward revision to January’s figure, which was revised from 151k to 172k jobs. The dollar initially spiked up 0.3% to 114.21 yen after the data and the euro fell 0.6% to 1.0902 dollars as it cemented expectations that the Federal Reserve will stick with its policy of gradual increases to the fed [..]

Week Ahead – Focus turns to ECB, BoC and RBNZ rate decisions, China data

Posted on March 4, 2016 at 12:54 pm GMT

Monetary policy will take centre stage next week as the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand meet for their latest policy decisions. The US will take a back seat with no major data to report but China will attract attention for some key data releases. The first data to come out of China next week are the closely watched trade numbers on Tuesday, which continue to grab markets’ attention as investors look [..]

Sterling resists weak PMIs to move off multi-year lows

Posted on March 3, 2016 at 11:40 am GMT

Sterling took advantage of a relatively quiet week for UK data to move off multi-year lows against major currencies such as the dollar, yen and the euro. Investors appeared little concerned from disappointing Markit PMI data, which pointed to slowing growth in February. All three PMI surveys – manufacturing, construction and services – came in below expectations for the month of February, raising doubts about the strength of the UK economy. Manufacturing PMI, which was the first to be released [..]

Australian economy resilient to global slowdown as GDP beats estimates…again

Posted on March 2, 2016 at 11:37 am GMT

The Australian economy showed no sign of losing steam in the face of global headwinds as GDP growth maintained a healthy momentum in the fourth quarter of last year. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the economy expanded by 0.6% quarter-on-quarter in the final three months of 2016, beating forecasts of 0.4% growth. Adding to the upbeat data was an upward revision to the third quarter’s already robust growth rate from 0.9% to 1.1%. This pushed annual growth up [..]

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