Macro Events & News

FX News Today

Today’s trading session will be quiet, as Japanese markets are closed to celebrate the Emperor’s Birthday. We may see some activity around the CAD later today upon the release of the Canadian Core Retail Sales and GDP data. In over night trading, Asian equity markets closed the session mostly higher, while U.S. stocks charged higher posting gains of nearly 1% for the session.

The major USD currency pairs continued to lack direction without any market catalyst on tab to jolt the USD in any meaningful direction. EURUSD remains in a tight range within the 1.09s after marking a one week high near 1.0980′s yesterday. USDJPY also appears to be in a narrowly range around 121.00 for a third day, with the sharp volatility seen in the wake of last Friday’s BoJ policy fading away.

Industrial metals and oil prices have been moving higher, as investors’ confidence about the growth prospects in the U.S. and China increases.

Main Macro Events Today

• JPY Japan : Bank Holiday

• GBP United Kingdom Final GDP: Q3 expected to be confirmed at 0.5% q/q and 2.3% y/y

• CAD Core Retail Sales: Analyst expect retail sales values, due later today, to improve 0.8% in October (median 0.6%) following the 0.5% drop in September. The ex-autos sales aggregate is expected to gain 0.5% m/m in October (median +0.5%) after the 0.5% pull-back in September. Gasoline prices fell 2.0% m/m in October, a comparatively modest pull-back compared to the 7.9% plunge in September according to the CPI. Hence, we should see an only modest drag from gas station sales on total and ex-autos sales. Moreover, gasoline prices remain very low relative to a year ago, which could continue to underpin spending along with low interest rates. Vehicle sales were firm through November, which should be supportive of total sales in both October and November.

• CAD October GDP: Analyst expect GDP, due Wednesday, to rise 0.2% in October (median +0.3%) after the 0.5% plunge in September. The projection is driven by an expected boost from the return to production of an oil sands producer that was off-line due to fire in September. That boost is seen offsetting drags from manufacturing, wholesale and housing. But the expected boost from the oil sand producer could be tempered by temporary closures at other refineries (notably Irving Oil in St. John).

• U.S. Durable Goods: November durable goods data is out Wednesday and should reveal a 1.5% (median -0.7%) decline in orders for the month with inventories and sales both remaining unchanged in November. This follows respective October figures of 2.9% for orders with shipments down 1.0% and inventories down 0.3%. Data in line with this forecast would leave the I/S ratio steady at 1.65 from October.

• U.S. Personal Income: November personal income is out Wednesday and analyst expect a 0.3% (median 0.2%) increase in headline income with consumption up 0.3% (median 0.3%) as well. This would follow October figures of 0.4% for income and 0.1% for consumption which prompted a bounce in the savings rate to 5.6% from 5.3% in September. For price data analyst expect the PCE Chain Price Index to remain unchanged with the core up 0.2%, matching the November CPI figures.