The first trading week in February will be another active one with no less than 8 major event risks on the calendar (in order of release):
- Chinese PMI
- UK PMI
- RBA Rate Decision
- German Labor Report
- NZ Labor Report
- BoE Rate Decision & Quarterly Report
- US Non-Farm Payrolls
- Canadian Employment Report
Although U.S. non-farm payrolls is the most high profile report on next week's calendar, we find Australia and the U.K.'s monetary policy announcements far more interesting because after the BoJ's actions everyone is wondering who will be next. Neither the RBA nor the BoJ are expected to change monetary policy but a dovish bias from both could drive AUD and GBP lower. With the Chinese economy slowing and commodity prices falling, it may be difficult for the RBA to maintain a brave face. AUD and NZD traded lower today but we believe that those rallies will fade soon. China's official PMI report is not expected to be particularly ugly, as the government will do everything in their power to prevent further losses in equity markets.
The Bank of England on the other hand has every reason to lower their inflation forecasts and signal to the market that interest rates may not increase until the end of the year at the earliest.Given the sharp fall in retail sales and trade activity in the fourth quarter we are still surprised by the uptick in GDP. We prefer to put greater weight on Bank of England Governor Carney's dovish comments and the likelihood of the BoE minutes and Quarterly Inflation report echoing that tone. GBP/USD traded lower today and we are looking for further losses in the currency pair.
Of course the focus will also be on the U.S. dollar because not only do we have the employment report at the end of the week but also personal income, spending, ADP and the ISM manufacturing report on the calendar. However with all of the other Tier 1 economic reports scheduled for release and the lack of the ISM non-manufacturing index, don't expect the dollar to capture the market's attention until Thursday. Also a weak non-farm payrolls report will have a larger impact on the greenback than a strong one because it will reinforce the market's hinting suspicion that Federal Reserve shares the concerns of other major central banks. Today's BoJ decision and the ECB's recent dovishness puts significant pressure on the Fed to delay tightening even though personal consumption growth accelerated according to the fourth quarter GDP report. Growth slowed to 0.7% from 2% at the end of last year which was slightly worse than expected but considering that investors braced for an even weaker release it was good enough to prevent a significant drop in USD/JPY.
USD/CAD traded lower today on the back of stronger GDP numbers and higher oil prices. Canada's economy expanded 0.3% in November up from 0% the month prior but the real key is oil which continues to show signs of a bottom but 1.40 is proving to be a key level for USD/CAD. Like the U.S., Canada has employment and manufacturing PMI numbers scheduled for release next week. Both of these reports will be out on Friday, which means for most of the week, USD/CAD will be driven by the oil.
Finally, we bumped the euro down to the bottom of today's report because EUR/USD has been the most boring pair to trade. It has remained stuck in a narrow 1.0700 to 1.10 trading range and is likely to be bounded by these levels for some time. The decline in German consumer consumption, drop in French CPI and slowdown in French GDP growth was completely overshadowed by the BoJ's rate decision. The euro did not benefit from the improvement in risk appetite but this should not surprise our readers because the currency behaved exactly the same way in October 2014. Compared to other major economies, the Eurozone has a lighter economic calendar with less market moving data. German unemployment numbers are the main release along with revisions to PMIs.
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