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Forex News – Week Ahead – GDP data in focus

Posted on December 19, 2014 at 11:13 am GMT

The week ahead has few major economic releases as the year draws to a close. The main data of importance will be Gross Domestic Product figures (GDP) from various countries – UK, Canada and the US. The data will be final estimates for third quarter GDP in all three countries. The UK will release its final third quarter GDP numbers on Tuesday. The Office for National Statistics’ second estimate showed the UK economy expanding by 0.7% in the months from [..]

Forex News – BoE minutes retain concern over low UK inflation, weigh on pound

Posted on December 17, 2014 at 2:09 pm GMT

The United Kingdom was in focus today as there were some key data releases from there. These included the Bank of England minutes and jobs data. The BoE minutes of the latest Monetary Policy Committee’s meeting on December 4th offered little to change the view that interest rates will stay near record lows until at least the second half of 2015. Concerns over inflation remain. The MPC doves were still a majority as only 2 out of 9 MPC members [..]

Forex News – Eurozone PMIs beat expectations on periphery strength; euro gains

Posted on December 16, 2014 at 2:11 pm GMT

The flash Markit Purchasing Manager Indices (PMIs) for the Eurozone were released today and they were stronger-than-expected, at least on an aggregate level. The Eurozone composite flash PMI came in at 51.7 compared to expectations of 51.5 and a 51.1 prior number. Manufacturing PMI was at 50.8 compared to 50.1 the previous month and Services PMI was at 51.9 versus 51.1 in November. The composite PMI for France improved at 49.1 in December compared to 47.9 in November, whereas the [..]

Forex News – Quarterly Tankan survey shows challenges ahead for Japan

Posted on December 15, 2014 at 1:04 pm GMT

Today was an important day for Japanese markets as not only was the quarterly Bank of Japan Tankan survey of business sentiment announced, but the market got a chance to react to the results of the previous day’s Japanese elections. The Tankan survey slightly missed expectations on the Big Manufacturers Diffusion index, as it came in at +12 against expectations of staying the same as the third quarter at +13. More worrying was the drop in the Big Manufacturers Outlook, [..]

Forex News – Week Ahead: Fed and BOJ meetings, European PMIs make for busy week

Posted on December 12, 2014 at 9:48 am GMT

Next week will be a busy one before the lull brought on by the Christmas and New Year holidays. Japanese elections, the Fed meeting, the UK employment report and Eurozone flash PMIs will be key for the yen, dollar, pound and euro respectively. Starting with the yen, on Monday traders will get a chance to react to the results of the Japanese elections, which the incumbent government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to win by a wide margin. [..]

Forex News – SNB keeps rates unchanged, vows to defend franc floor

Posted on December 11, 2014 at 10:47 am GMT

The Swiss National Bank kept its key interest rate target unchanged at its meeting today, which disappointed some in the market who expected something new from the SNB like negative interest rates. However, negative rates were mentioned as a possible monetary policy tool during the press conference that followed the announcement. The SNB kept its 3-month LIBOR target at 0 to 0.25%, as it has done for the past 5 years and made revisions to its economic forecasts. The Swiss [..]

Forex News – Preview: Japanese yen to experience more volatility following December 14 election

Posted on December 10, 2014 at 3:14 pm GMT

Japan will go to the polls on Sunday to vote a new lower house of Parliament of the “National Diet”. The elections are expected to be comfortably won by the incumbent Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It remains to be seen however whether Abe will use this victory in order to push through potentially painful structural reforms that would boost the economy’s growth potential. Structural reforms are the so-called ‘third arrow’ of Abenomics and they include labor market reforms such as [..]

Forex News – UK manufacturing sector shows signs of weakness

Posted on December 9, 2014 at 11:24 am GMT

UK data from the industrial sector on Tuesday showed signs that the British economy was not performing that well in the fourth quarter. Growth in manufacturing has been a lot weaker than the services sector. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), output is still well below 2008 levels. Figures released for October showed industrial output contracted unexpectedly and manufacturing output tumbled by the most since May. After having jumped by a revised 0.7 percent in September, industrial output [..]

Forex News – Japan’s 3rd quarter GDP even worse than first thought – yen near lows

Posted on December 8, 2014 at 12:31 pm GMT

The revision to Japan’s preliminary third quarter GDP growth figures was even worse than the dismal initial figures. Analysts failed to predict the negative revisions, as they were misled by a business investment survey that showed an improvement. Instead, because of methodological and sample issues, investment data was actually revised downwards. The annualized growth rate was revised to -1.9% from an initial 1.6% contraction and the quarter-on-quarter contraction was slightly lower to -0.5% from -0.4%. Instead analysts were expecting the [..]

Forex News – Week ahead: Chinese data, US retail sales and TLTRO feature

Posted on December 5, 2014 at 2:01 pm GMT

The week will start off with final Japanese 3rd quarter growth and given the giant miss against expectations that the preliminary figure featured, any revisions from the -0.4% contraction will be closely watched. Current account numbers for October will also be released on Monday as well as trade balance figures. Japan will enter the final week before elections on December 14, which are expected to renew Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s mandate for his stimulus program. Chinese data will feature heavily [..]

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