Good morning
US data releases will be one hour earlier at 12.30 or 14.00 london time due to the US clock changes that took place at the weekend.
In addition, FX option expiries will be 14.00 london time, not the usual 15.00 london time.
This will be until Sunday 31st when we change our clocks in the UK.
Yesterday the markets were in something of a consolidation mode, certainly GBPUSD was stuck in a reasonably tight range through the day, touching a high around 1.2810 a couple of times and as I type we are testing up there once again, while to the downside it was rarely below 1.2780. EURUSD was a little more active, starting around 1.0920 and working its way up to 1.0960 by the end of the London session, falling back overnight to current levels around 1.0935.
Potential interest rate changes still the main talking point, I note that Fitch have pushed back their forecasts for Fed and ECB from June to July and April to June respectively. The risk must be that these get pushed back further still.
Today we will have the US PPI, another potentially market moving inflation number, while we also hear from several ECB officials where perhaps we’ll get an idea of their thinking for rate moves in April or June. A lot of attention however is turning to the BoJ meeting next week, the general feeling is that they will keep rates in negative territory until the April meeting but with just under one third of commentators looking for a rate rise in March it will certainly be one of the more closely watched meetings.
Cheltenham again today, anyone following my ‘choose the name’ method should have been pretty happy if they had each way bets, both Monty’s Star and Romeo Coolio each finishing second. Today I’ve spotted Colonel Harry in the 1.30, my eldest son’s name (Harry, not Colonel), and Cleatus Poolaw in the 2.10 (got to be of a certain age to remember dukes of hazard).
Finally, apologies to their respective fans but no one would have thought a midweek match between Bournemouth and Luton would be particularly memorable. As it was, Luton took a 3-0 lead in the first half, only for Bournemouth to turn things around in the second half to win 4-3. It would not have been a great journey home for those travelling Luton fans.
That’s all for now, a relatively short piece today reflective of the lack of anything decent to get my teeth into. Have a great day, got a little bit of sunshine here at the moment, we’ll see how long that can last. Mornings evenings getting noticeably lighter which is never a bad thing.
- 09.30 ECBs Elderson speaks
- 11.00 ECBs Schnabel speaks
- 12.00 ECBs Knot speaks
- 12.30 US retail sales, PPI, initial jobless claims
- 18.00 ECBs de Guindos speaks
- 18.30 ECBs Stournas speaks
- 21.30 NZ business PMI
Comentarios