In a relatively quiet day, for medium to high economic calendar events published in the USA, Wednesday saw the USA monthly budget statement come in beating the forecast at -$107b for August, still significantly ahead of the -$42.9 recorded for July, but the result was not as bad as many analysts had feared, who had […]
The major currency talking point during Tuesday’s trading sessions, concerned the soaring rise of the UK’s pound, versus its peers. U.K. CPI inflation came in at 2.9% YoY for August, missing the forecast and increasing from the 2.6% recorded in July. The MoM rise was 0.6%, soaring from the -0.1% recorded in July. As a
Global equities enjoyed a relief rally on Monday with certain global indices reaching record highs. Hurricane Irma avoided Miami, whilst the potential catastrophic damage, which some mainstream media commentators were terming “Irmageddon”, failed to materialise to its full predicted extent, as the eye of the storm and the projected direction, was nudged off course. The
Measured versus a basket of its peers, the U.S. dollar closed out the week by plunging to its lowest level in approximately two years on Friday, whilst WTI oil collapsed by circa 3%. With hurricane Irma approaching and a huge earthquake hitting Mexico, which fortunately took place a sufficient distance from Mexico City, avoiding the
There was a buildup of fevered speculation on Thursday, surrounding the ECB’s interest rate and asset purchase scheme announcement, with many analysts suggesting that Mario Draghi, the president of the ECB, would deliver a more hawkish message, by way of maintaining the current interest rate at 0.00%, but begin to immediately taper the amount of
Over recent days (and weeks), the financial news narrative has been dominated by a combination of the tropical storm Harvey, the impending storms of Katia, Jose and Irma and the continuous geo political tensions between the USA administration and North Korea. Therefore (in certain ways) it was refreshing that investor news on Wednesday was dominated
As widely forecast, Australia’s central bank (the RBA), kept its main interest rate at 1.5%, however, AUD/USD broke to the upside, breaching R2, as the decision was made public. The Aussie made moderate gains versus several peers during Tuesday’s trading sessions, not necessarily due to the announcement, or the statement accompanying the decision, moreover as
In a relatively quiet day for economic calendar news, the geo political tensions in relation to North Korea, once again dominated the mainstream media’s commentary and as a consequence the investor narrative throughout Monday’s trading sessions. The financial media also focused on the rogue regime’s latest (alleged) hydrogen bomb test, which caused a significant earthquake
Friday witnessed a shock NFP (Non Farm Payroll) result published by the BLS department in the USA; forecast at 180k jobs created in August, versus 189k in July, the actual number came in at 156k. Added to the spike in corporate job cuts – as evidenced by the recent Challenger corporate job cut numbers –
China posted encouraging economic calendar data on Thursday morning; their manufacturing PMI came in at 51.7, marginally beating the forecast of a drop to 51.3, from the 51.4 reading posted for July. Whilst only moderately above the 50 figure, which divides contraction from expansion, the figure delivered optimism that the Chinese economy has not discovered
