Forex Previews

Forex News – Week ahead – US nonfarm payrolls will be key driver for dollar, ECB and BoE in focus

Posted on January 6, 2014 at 10:43 am GMT

It will be a busy week as the first full trading week of 2014 kicks off with several key risk events. Monday began with releases of Euro zone services PMI data. The Markit services PMI final reading for December was unchanged at 51.0 and in line with expectations while the composite PMI was also unchanged at 52.1. On a country-by-country basis, German, French and Spanish PMI all rose, except Italian PMI, which unexpectedly fell. On Tuesday, the major event of the [..]

Forex News – US factories humming along ISM shows

Posted on January 3, 2014 at 1:03 pm GMT

[caption id="attachment_12333" align="alignnone" width="550"] (click to enlarge)[/caption] The Institute of Supply Management’s (ISM) release of the December manufacturing survey was one of the very first economic releases of the first trading day of 2014. The ISM manufacturing and non-manufacturing surveys have a good track record of predicting economic growth in the United States and are therefore very interesting to economists and market participants more widely. The ISM manufacturing figure came exactly in line with expectations at 57, which was a [..]

Forex News – Eurozone December Markit Manufacturing PMI shows continued expansion

Posted on January 2, 2014 at 1:18 pm GMT

[caption id="attachment_12319" align="alignnone" width="550"] (click to enlarge)[/caption] The announcement of the final Eurozone Manufacturing business sentiment index (PMI) for December was a confirmation that the region’s economic recovery was on track. Hence, economic growth in the 1% to 1.5% range looks quite plausible for the Eurozone during the New Year. The final headline figure came in line with expectations at 52.7, confirming the flash estimate that was released earlier in mid-December. The December figure still marked a substantial improvement from [..]

Forex News – Looking back: what worked and what didn’t in FX during 2013

Posted on December 31, 2013 at 12:11 pm GMT

The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing as one can calmly look back and review what happened without fear or worry of being proven wrong. In addition, for traders, the review of past events and their influence on the market is of paramount importance. Sadly this is often neglected in favour of looking at day-to-day or hour-to-hour movements and developments rather than stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. Looking at the performance of major forex pairs during [..]

Forex News – Week ahead – Markets end year with bright outlook

Posted on December 30, 2013 at 12:54 pm GMT

The Santa Clause rally continued into early trading on Monday, as investor sentiment was high. The S&P 500 closed at another record high on Friday. The Dow Jones hit a record high as well. Gains were not confined to Wall Street, as Asian equity markets also surged, with the Nikkei reaching six-year highs. Trading volumes are expected to be thin, heading into the end of 2013 and most investors and traders are closing their books. Amongst the major currencies, the [..]

Forex News – Improving US economy underpins Fed taper

Posted on December 23, 2013 at 5:28 pm GMT

Markets are focused on US data following the Federal Reserve’s announcement on December 18 to scale back its stimulus program. Since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke first mentioned earlier this year that tapering was data-dependent, much of the dollar’s recent strength especially against the yen has been driven by improving US data. Last Friday, GDP data showed the US economy expanded at the fastest pace in two years in the third quarter. The revised figures showed a 4.1% growth at [..]

Forex news – Japanese trade balance worsening on weak yen

Posted on December 18, 2013 at 2:37 pm GMT

[caption id="attachment_12135" align="alignnone" width="550"] (Click to enlarge)[/caption] Whereas Japan was the country of chronic trade surpluses until recently, this situation has definitely reversed during the past 2 years. Japan posted a 1.29 trillion yen trade deficit during November, which was better than expectations of a 1.32 billion shortfall and a 1.09 trillion deficit registered in October. Imports increased by 21.1% year-on-year, mainly as a result of the weak yen and a related huge energy bill that Japan is facing after [..]

Forex news – Eurozone inflation rises despite falling energy costs

Posted on December 17, 2013 at 3:48 pm GMT

[caption id="attachment_12086" align="alignnone" width="550"] (Click to enlarge)[/caption] Annual Eurozone inflation rose to 0.9% in November, in line with expectations and up from October’s 0.7% year-on-year rate. October was the first month since February of 2010 that inflation was under 1% and this had caused some concern that the Eurozone was heading for –if not deflation – at least disinflation. Persistently low inflation could push the ECB towards undertaking additional monetary stimulus. ECB President Mario Draghi said that inflation too low [..]

Forex news – Week ahead: Fed likely to call market’s tune

Posted on December 16, 2013 at 2:31 pm GMT

The Federal Reserve’s decision to maintain or reduce the pace of asset purchases is most likely to prove the highlight of the next few days. The consensus is that the Fed will wait for the New Year before it begins tapering, but recently strong US economic statistics might have tipped the balance in favor of taking action earlier than most expect. Any decision to taper could prove dollar-positive, as the rate of pumping extra dollar liquidity to the markets will [..]

Forex News – UK Industrial Production recovering but far from pre-2008 level

Posted on December 10, 2013 at 3:03 pm GMT

[caption id="attachment_11961" align="alignnone" width="550"] (click to enlarge)[/caption] The news that UK industrial production was up 0.4% month-on-month was positive, since it beat consensus expectations of a rise of 0.3%. The annual rate of increase of output for UK industry was 3.2%. Except for 2010, UK industry has not really contributed to the country’s economic growth. The annual growth rate of industrial output turned positive during September, so the improving growth rate of October could be the start of a positive [..]

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