Key Notes:
- UK Rightmove HPI m/m 1% vs. 2.1% previously
- Australia New Motor Vehicle sales m/m 2.9% vs. -1.9% previously
- Switzerland PPI m/m -1.4% vs. 0.4%; Retail sales y/y -0.3% vs. 2.6%
- Canada Foreign Securities purchases 5.73Bn vs. -1.95Bn
- US Empire state manufacturing index 6.9 vs. 8.1
- US Capacity utilization rate 78.9% vs. 79.5%
- US industrial production m/m 0.1% vs. 0.3%
Later
- ECB President Draghi speech
- US NAHB housing market index
The markets opened the week on a mixed note with most of the currency pairs trading within a range and no clear directional bias ahead of the BoJ’s monetary policy meeting and the FOMC this week.
USDJPY was seen trading within the range of 121.5 highs and 121 lows, while the Australian and Kiwi dollars were seemingly better, albeit trading sideways for the most part of the day. Lack of economic data from Asia further added to the sideways price action. The BoJ will be meeting on Tuesday morning, Asian session and is expected to keep its policy on hold. The Yen has been trading mixed, stronger against the British Sterling, while weaker against the Greenback. The AUDJPY and NZDJPY managed to trim some of their previous losses.
The European trading session saw the Euro modestly faring better after dipping to earlier lows at 1.04726 on Friday. At the time of writing EURUSD was trading near 1.0547 handle, testing a medium term trend line, a break out of which could see the pair head towards the daily pivot level at 1.06 levels. GBPUSD was also modestly higher trading near 1.479 levels to trim some of its losses from Friday. There were no major events scheduled from Europe with the exception of Switzerland PPI and retail sales data both of which missed estimates. The SNB will be meeting this week for the quarterly monetary policy review as well, the first after abandoning its peg to the Euro.
The US trading session kicked off with the Empire state manufacturing index, which weakened to 6.9 below estimates of 8.1 and down from 7.8 previously. Capacity utilization rate was below estimates at 78.9% while industrial production also grew at a slower pace of 0.1%.
The US Dollar, which was also trading mixed since the start saw some reactionary weakness across the board, in what seems like a pause before the resumption of the next leg in its rally ahead of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy on Wednesday, 18th March.
Obviously, the Aussie and the Kiwi dollars were performing better including the Canadian Dollar.
