Thursday February 14th is a busy day for high impact calendar news. Crucial data concerning: the German economy, the Eurozone and the USA economy, will be released. This is data which has the power to move markets, particularly if the forecasts by various news agencies are missed, or beaten. The forecasts are obtained after the agencies poll their panel of leading economists, generally at leading investment banks and central banks.
At 7:00am U.K. time, the latest GDP growth figures for Germany are published, Reuters expect that growth will have fallen to 0.8% YoY, from the 1.2% recorded in Q3 for annual growth. Q4 2018 growth is forecast to come in 0.1%, a modest recovery from the -0.2% published for Q3. At 10:00am the latest GDP data for the Eurozone will be broadcast, the forecasts are for 0.2% growth in Q4 2018, maintaining annual growth at 1.2%.
It’s likely that the value of certain Eurozone equity indices will react to the news, similarly the value of the euro could come under close scrutiny, depending on the data that is published. Therefore, FX and equity traders would be advised to diarise the data and perhaps set themselves alerts prior to the releases, in order to manage any positions they have in the market place. Or to assist their decision making regarding entering the market.
At 13:30pm U.K. time, a USA stats. agency will publish its latest data on advanced retail sales for December. This monthly data series is one of the most closely watched for the USA economy and can impact on USA equity indices and the value of the U.S. dollar, versus its currency peers. The advanced sales figures are leading indicators of consumer confidence and relates to the big ticket items they’ve ordered, which they then have to wait for delivery.
The advanced retail figures for the USA are often closely aligned by analysts to the monthly CPI inflation for January, which came in on Wednesday afternoon at 0.2% for December. The yearly figure came in at 1.6%, falling from 1.9%. Data was also published revealing the latest wage growth in the economy, the estimate was that wage growth would be maintained at 1.2% annually. However, the actual published figure collapsed to 0.1% for weekly earnings, year on year. Such a low wage inflation figure for January may have been evidence of consumers’ disposable income being crimped, preventing them committing to buying consumer goods.
As always, when high impact calendar data is published, or events occur, the relative currencies pertaining to the release, can experience significant volatility. Therefore, FX traders would be advised to diarise the various events listed here, and maintain their high levels of vigilance, throughout the day’s trading sessions.
