Once again we have another busy week is store for us. The Economic Calendar is absolutely packed this week. In particular traders will be watching Consumer Price Index (CPI) releases from the UK, Eurozone and US along with the FOMC Interest Rate Statement.

To add to the excitement we also have RBA and BOE Meeting Minutes, ZEW Economic Sentiment, TIC data, BOJ Interest Rate Announcement and the SNB Interest Rate Statement to keep us occupied.

To help keep you informed we have posted a full weekly preview, ‘CPI and FOMC Will Hold the Key This Week’ to our Market News Blog and you will find our economic calendar fully updated.

In addition to this we have the Visual Analysis and Historical Data tool in play for the US Core CPI release on Tuesday.

We hope that you find all of this information useful. Have a successful week and good trading to you all!

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We are always trying to think of ways to make our site more user-friendly. Those of you who use our Visual Analysis and Historical Data tool will know that we post great updates and market commentary for every release. Don’t worry, we aren’t taking this commentary away, we are just moving it to the News Blog! Rather than seeing the full story on the individual VA page we’ll be posting a handy link to the features on the Blog.

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Last week was characterised by a rapid appreciation in the value of the US Dollar. However, this wasn’t due to improving economic conditions in the US as much as confirmation of deterioration in other countries. The dollar also took strength from falling commodity prices.

The currencies worst hit against the Greenback were the UK Pound, Euro, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar. The GBPUSD made a new 21-month low, the EURUSD has its sharpest fall in 3 years, the AUDUSD extended its longest loosing streak since 1980 and the CADUSD had its biggest weekly rally since 1971.

The UK, Eurozone and Australia all kept interest rates on hold last week. Australia sighted economic slowdown in a statement that left the way open for a rate cut at the RBA’s next meeting while the Eurozone conceded that there was no monetary policy bias, thus killing any hopes of further rate hikes from the ECB.

The Canadian Dollar suffered from a poor labor report. Employment Change came in at -55K as opposed to the +5K expected.

The coming week is very busy with a host of high volatility events expected once again. We begin on Monday morning with the RBA Monetary Policy Statement. Traders will be looking at this to confirm the chance of a rate cut at the next interest rate meeting. We also have UK PPI Input at 09:30 with expectations of 1.0% MoM growth for July. Heading into the US trading session we have Canadian Housing Starts at 13:15. Last week we saw Canadian Building Permits fall by more than expected at -5.3% MoM with Housing Starts also expected to fall slightly from 218K in June to 210K for July.

Tuesday will bring the latest round of inflation data from the UK with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) YoY watched very closely. Economists are expecting the YoY figure to rise to 4.1%. Later on Tuesday we will see high volatility for the US and Canadian Trade Balance releases. US Trade Deficit is expected to widen from 59.8B to 61.8B while Canadian Trade Surplus should increase slightly to 5.7B from 5.5B.

We continue on Wednesday with the Japanese preliminary GDP. This is a quarterly calculation with GDP expected to show contraction of 0.6% from growth of 1.0% in the previous quarter. UK Claimant Count Change is also due with an extra 17.5K expected to have claimed unemployment benefit in July. There is an economic report from the BOE due at 10:30. The BOE Inflation Report follows yesterday’s CPI news. The next round of high volatility data from the US comes at 13:30 with Core Retail Sales and Retail Sales hitting the wire. The Core number is expected to show 0.5% growth MoM while the raw number will probably be flat at 0.0% MoM.

Thursday will be typically busy with high volatility from the Eurozone, US, Canada and New Zealand. First up is German Preliminary GDP QoQ. GDP is expected to have contracted by 0.8% after 1.5% growth in the previous quarter. Trichet spoke last week of a “technical correction” in GDP and this would be the first evidence of that. At 10:00 Eurozone CPI YoY is due with a number of 4.1% widely expected. Next is US Core CPI MoM. A reading of 0.2% is expected after 0.3% growth in June. The Bank of Canada will add to the excitement on Thursday with its Summer Quarterly Review. Traders will be particularly interested to see how the BOC explains Canada’s economic performance over recent months. Data from New Zealand will be of high importance with Core Retail Sales and Retail Sales due. Both numbers are expected to post a MoM decline with -0.8% and -1.6% anticipated respectively.

Friday will round off the week with two more high volatility events. First is the latest round of Treasury International Capital (TIC) Net Long-Term Transactions data. It is expected that 55.0B of foreign investment came into the US long-term securities market last month from 67.0B the month before. Also due is the preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment with a number of 62.0 expected.

Visual Analysis and Historical Data

In the up coming week the visual analysis and historical data tool will support the US Core CPI release.

passion-trading.com is are pleased to announce the release of a Pivot Point Calculator for stocks and Forex.

The Pivot Point Calculator takes the previous day’s high, low and close values to give you the Pivot Point and 4 levels of support and resistance for the current day’s trading range. There is also an option to calculate 2 or 4 decimal places depending on whether you are working with a stock or forex pair/ cross.

You will be able to find a link to the Pivot Point Calculator on any of our internal pages in the left-hand nav bar.

This new calculator is the first addition to a complete Pivot Point trading portal. In the weeks to come we will be uploading articles, videos and pivot point trading strategies to help you make the most of this trading tool.
 

This week promises to be a very busy one with no less than four central banks due to release interest rate decisions. For what it’s worth, all four banks are expected to remain on hold but traders do see a small chance that the RBA may cut rates now ahead of the more widely expected cut in September.

We begin the week with a high volatility event from New Zealand on Sunday night. Unit Labour Costs are expected to show a 0.8% increase QoQ.

On Tuesday morning we have the first of our scheduled interest rate statements, which comes from the RBA. Rates currently stand at 7.25% and the majority of economists expect the RBA to stay on hold however some are not as convinced. A string of recent weak economic data from Australia has caused the market to price in a quarter percent drop by the end of the year at least. At this point it would seem likely that the RBA will use the statement to put forward the case for an interest rate cut, essentially preparing the market for the following month.

Tuesday morning’s London session will be busy with three high volatility events due from the UK. First of all the Halifax House Price Index is expected to show a monthly decrease of 1.5% in the cost of UK homes. This economic release date is tentative and could fall at any time over the next week. At 09:30 Manufacturing Production MoM and Services PMI will be released. The UK manufacturing sector is expected to respond modestly to a 0.5% decrease in value of manufacturing output in June with a 0.1% increase in July. Services PMI is expected to drop to 46.7 from 47.1, a number which still shows contraction in the Services industry.

Also on Tuesday we have the ISM Non-Manufacturing Composite. The number is due to show contraction with 48.6 expected. Later on in the NY session is the FOMC Interest Rate Statement. Rates currently stand at 2.00% with no move expected. High volatility is likely with traders still anticipating a rate hike if anything.

Following on from the RBA Interest Rate Statement the previous day we will see Australian Home Loans early Wednesday morning. The number is expected to drop by 2.1% MoM after a 7.9% fall in June. Also due on Wednesday at 15:00 is the Canadian Ivey PMI. This is a broad economic indicator because it surveys all sectors of the economy. The indicator is expected to come in at 62.0 after a 69.6 June reading. Rounding up Wednesday we have high volatility news from New Zealand. Employment Change and Unemployment Rate will be released with 0.1% and 3.8% expected respectively.

On Thursday we will have the last two interest rate announcements but prior to this we will see employment data from Australia. Employment Change and Unemployment Rate are both due with the Australian economy expected to have added 4K jobs in July. Despite this increase in jobs, unemployment is expected to have increased to 4.3%. At midday we have the BOE Interest Rate Statement. Rates are expected to remain on hold at 5.00%. Traders will be interested in the wording of the statement with the BOE expected to sight rising inflation and a flagging economy in their decision the keep rates where they are.

At 12:45 the ECB Interest Rate Announcement is due. The rate is expected to remain on hold in the face of high inflation (the CPI Flash Estimate released last week showed a 4.1% annual rate). However, economists are becoming increasingly sceptical of the Eurozone’s economic strength. A large amount of attention will be paid to the ECB press conference that follows the rate announcement. Traders will be looking for clue to future moves with Trichet expected to maintain that inflation will come under control towards the end of the year. Spain’s Solbes has commented in recent days that he expects to see 4% inflation by the end of the year, pending oil price stabilisation.

The afternoon session will see high volatility construction events from Canada and the US. At 13:30 (the same time as the ECB Press Conference) Canada will release its Building Permits figures. The number is expected to fall by 1.0% MoM. At 15:00 we will see US Pending Home Sales. It is believed that this number is more forward looking than Existing Home Sales and high volatility can be expected. A drop of 1.0% is expected following a MoM decrease of 4.7% in the previous month.

Rounding up the week on Friday we have a quieter day in store. There are two high volatility events due from Canada, both of which showcasing Canadian employment health. Employment Change is expected to follow a decline of 5.0% in June with an increase of the same number for July while the Unemployment Rate should hold firm at 6.2%.

This week could be the key to setting the near to medium term sentiment in the USD. Highly anticipated economic data is due this week with the Advance GDP and Non-Farm Employment Change top of the list.

The US economic calendar begins the week slowly and we have to wait until 15:00 on Tuesday 29th for our first high volatility event. The Consumer Confidence Index has been falling consistently with economists expecting further declines this month. Consumer Confidence is seen as key to consumer spending. However, with global energy inflation driving domestic CPI its effects are hard to decipher.

Further high volatility will come from the US on Wednesday with ADP Non-Farm Employment Change due. This data acts as a preview to the official Non-Farm Payrolls news released later in the week. However, any correlation between the two sets of numbers is weak at best. Never the less, traders will be watching keenly at 13:15 on the 30th.

Thursday will be a busy trading period all-around but the main focus will be US Advance GDP. This data related to Q2 and is expected to show annualized growth of 2.2%. It should also be noted that the Employment Cost Index QoQ and Initial Jobless Claims are due at 13:30. Although they are not expected to be high volatility events themselves they will carry increased influence due to the employment data due the following day.

The first Friday of every month is always a big day due to Non-Farm Employment Change. This news carries arguably the most volatility to the market of any economic data. Coupled with the release of US Unemployment Rate (which is creating more volatility of late as economists watch the labor market show signs of economic recession) the early morning New York session promises to be a busy one. Payrolls are expected to show contraction of 75K for the month of June while Unemployment Rate probably increased to 5.6%.

It should not be forgotten that the ISM Manufacturing Index is also due on Friday. Traders are expecting the Index to show 49.4, a level that indicates contraction in the manufacturing industry.

Further high volatility events for this week are as follows:

Sunday July 27th
New Zealand Trade Balance

Monday July 28th
New Zealand Building Consents

Wednesday July 30th
Australian Building Approvals

Thursday July 31st
Australian Retail Sales
Australian Trade Balance
Swiss CPI
Nationwide House Price Index
Canadian GDP

Friday August 1st
UK Manufacturing PMI

As a side note it may be worth watching AUDUSD this week. With decent volatility expected in both currencies and price just below 25-year highs it could be a pivotal week.

Last week was extremely busy in terms of economic news. The first half of the week was dominated by the Euro and Aussie Dollar, which made new record highs and fresh 25-year highs against the USD respectively. However, the Greenback was rescued by an 11% weekly decline in the price of oil. This is the largest weekly fall in three years and may form a significant top. Although the Euro and Aussie have retreated from their highs the US Dollar negative trend continues.

This week will be quieter on the news front with US housing market data seen as the main focus. Last week saw an unexpected increase in Building Permits from 978K (revised) to 1091K and Housing Starts from 977K (revised) to 1066K. If traders believe that the trend will be carried forward into this week then they will be hedging their bets for better than expected Existing Home Sales and New Home Sales. Existing Home Sales are due on Thursday July 24th at 15:00 and are expected to fall from 4.99M to 4.93M. New Home Sales will be released on Friday July 25th at 15:00 and a decline from 512K to 508K is expected.

Apart from housing data it promises to be a very quiet week for the US in terms of high volatility events. The only other big news scheduled is Core Durable Goods Orders. Also due for release on Friday, the market is expecting -0.2% for June versus -0.9% in May.

Elsewhere the UK has the busiest week in store. The first high volatility event is due on Tuesday at 09:45 when BOE Governor King and Deputy Governor Gieve testify before the UK Treasury Committee. This will be followed on Wednesday July 23rd at 09:30 by the BOE MPC Meeting Minutes. The vote breakdown is expected to show an 8-1 split in favour of a hold at 5.00% with Blanchflower calling for a cut once again. On Thursday 24th at 09:30 UK Retail Sales for June will hit the wire. There was an unexpected gain of 3.5% in May and the consensus estimate is for this to be offset by a 2.5% decline in June. Before the week is up we will see UK GDP QoQ. The previous quarter's data has already been revised lower to 0.3% from 0.4% and the preliminary release for the most current data is expected to show 0.2%. It will be interesting to see if the BOE can fight inflation (CPI YoY stands at 3.8%) with interest rate hikes in the face of slowing economic growth.

Data from Canada also promises to be plentiful for the week ahead. On Tuesday at 13:30 we will see Core Retail Sales which are expected to show a 0.8% growth for June, down from the 1.1% seen in May. Wednesday will bring us Canadian Core CPI for the month of June. Analysts are expecting 0.2% growth, down slightly from the 0.3% seen in May.

Other high volatility events for the coming week are as follows:

Monday 21st:
02:30 - Australian PPI QoQ

Wednesday 23rd:
02:30 - Australian CPI QoQ
22:00 - RBNZ Interest Rate Statement

Thursday 24th:
09:00 - German Ifo Business Climate Index

Visual Analysis & Historical Data
This week the visual analysis and historical data tool will support the following data releases:

BOE MPC Meeting Minutes
Canadian Core CPI MoM
US Existing Home Sales
US New Home Sales

This week the US Dollar will look to recover from losses sustained on Friday due to mortgage market worries and new record high oil prices.

The Dollar was sold off because of concerns that losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may spiral out of control and see the lenders nationalized. The big winner from the news was the Australian Dollar, hitting fresh 25-year highs against the Greenback.

Oil was driven higher (above $147 a barrel) on speculation that Israel may attack Iran. This helped the Canadian Dollar recover from much worse than expected employment data. The Canadian Labor market shed 5K jobs in June while it was expected to create 10K. This contributed to an increase in the Unemployment Rate from 6.1% to 6.2%.

This week we have a jam packed economic calendar with high volatility events right from the off. We begin the week on Sunday night with Core Retail Sales and Retail Sales from New Zealand. The Core number is expected to increase by 0.5% MoM while Retail Sales are expected to moderate by 0.1% on a monthly basis.

Monday: On Monday morning the main focus will be UK PPI Input MoM. The monthly rate is expected to come in at 2.5%, less than last month's 3.8%. However, this will still see the YoY number climb to 28.9%.

The rest of the London and New York sessions will be fairly quiet with Industrial Production from the Eurozone and the Fed Governors open meeting and vote on mortgage rule changes.

At 23:45 Monday night we will see further high impact data from New Zealand. This time it is the CPI QoQ. Growth in the Consumer Price Index is expected to climb to 1.4% QoQ.

Tuesday: Tuesday promises to be a busy day with high volatility events from the UK, Australia, Japan, Eurozone, US and Canada. We begin the day at 00:01 with the UK's RICS House Price Balance.  This survey measures the percentage of chartered surveyors reporting a reduction in house prices in their area. The market is anticipating that 93.8% of respondents will register a price drop. At 09:30 we will see the UK CPI with the YoY rate expected to climb to 3.6% pushing the data further above the BOE's 2.0% threshold. Not surprisingly Core CPI is expected to remain at 1.5% indicating that food and energy costs remain the main driving factors of consumer inflation.

At 02:30 the RBA will release the minutes from their last Interest Rate Meeting. Traders will be interested to see the RBA's views on slowing economic growth and the chances of any more interest rate hikes in the near future. The Australian Dollar has been trading at or near 25-year highs against the US Dollar for some time now in the face of strong commodity prices and a favourable interest rate gap.

Japanese Yen traders will be focussed on the Interest Rate Announcement and the accompanying BOJ Press Conference. With interest rates expected to remain steady at 0.50% more focus will fall on the press conference. Traders will be keen to see if the BOJ expects economic growth to remain relatively flat. It is expected that interest rates will remain at 0.50% for the foreseeable future.

Although the Euro is likely to react more to data from the US than its own economic data there is one high volatility release due. The German ZEW Economic Sentiment  will probably fall again to -55.5.

It will be a busy day in the US with Core Retail Sales, Retail Sales and PPI at 13:30 followed by Bernanke's Testimony to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs at 15:00. Retail Sales are expected to moderate slightly from May's impressive growth with the Core figure expected at 0.9% and Retail Sales at 0.4%. Elsewhere PPI is expected at 1.3% MoM, down from the 1.4% growth in May.

Canada will join Japan in making its latest Interest Rate Statement. Rates are expected to remain on hold at 3.00% but with the BOC's bias towards cutting rates traders will be on the lookout for any surprise cuts. The rate statement will also be closely scrutinised for changes in the language that may indicate rate moves in the months to come.

Further high volatility events for the week are as follows:

Wednesday:
04:05 RBA Governor Stevens Speaks
09:30 UK Claimant Count Change
10:00 Eurozone CPI YoY
13:30 US Core CPI MoM
14:00 TIC Net Long-Term Transactions
15:00 Bernanke Testifies before the House Committee on Financial Services
19:00 FOMC Meeting Minutes

Thursday:
BOC Monetary Policy Report
BOC Governor Carney Speaks

Visual Analysis and Historical Data
This week the visual analysis and historical data tool will support the US PPI and US Core CPI data releases.

This week the market awaits commentary from Fed speakers, including Bernanke, regarding future monetary policy. Economists are interested to see whether the Fed sees inflation as more of a risk than a weak economy ahead of future interest rate meetings. The question remains: can the US economy survive an inflation fighting rate hike without falling into recession.

This comes on the back of comments last week from the ECB. The Eurozone increased interest rates to 4.25% last Thursday but stated that they don’t expect any future need for further hikes. This resulted in ‘buy on rumour sell on fact’ trading in the EURUSD. Post data the currency pair fell from 1.5908 to a Thursday low of 1.5681.

Early focus in the new week will be on the reaction from US traders following the dismal US Labor market data. Non-Farm Employment Change was in negative territory once again (-62K), Unemployment Rate remained at 5.5% and Initial Jobless Claims climbed above 400K for the second time this year. US markets were closed on Friday for the Independence Day Holiday so it will be interesting to see how traders digest the news after the long weekend.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week will see a 3-day G8 meeting in Hokkaido, Japan. The meeting is expected to be dominated by climate change, food and commodity prices. There have been pre-meeting comments from Japan and the US blaming a weak US Dollar for inflated energy prices. Traders are waiting to see if G8 members’ comments are strong enough to support a dollar rally on speculation of central bank intervention.

In other news this week, high volatility economic data from the US takes a bit of a breather. The main events will be Fed Chairman Bernanke speech at 13:00 on Tuesday and his testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services on Thursday at 15:00. Traders will be looking for hints as to the Fed’s concern over inflation.

The US is also due Pending Home Sales at 15:00 on Tuesday, Initial Jobless Claims at 13:30 on Thursday (more volatility than usual is expected due to the +400K reading last week) and the Trade Balance and Preliminary Michigan Sentiment at 13:30 and 14:55 respectively. The only data that is expected to show any improvement is Initial Jobless Claims where a slight moderation to 397K is expected.

Elsewhere the Canadian economy steels the spotlight with no fewer than five high volatility releases due. Monday will see Building Permits (13:30) and the BOC Business Outlook Survey (15:00). Following this we will see Employment Change and Unemployment Rate at 12:00 and the Canadian Trade Balance at 13:30 on Friday.

Additional high volatility events this week are as follows (all times are UK DST):

Monday
UK Industrial Production (09:30)
NZIER Business Confidence (23:00)

Tuesday
Halifax House Price Index (NTS)

Wednesday
Australian Home Loans (02:30)

Thursday
Australian Employment Change (02:30)
Australian Unemployment Rate (02:30)
BOE Interest Rate Statement (12:00)

The ECB Interest Rate Announcement and US Non-Farm Employment Change look set to dominate this week's economic calendar with much volatility expected.

Last week we saw Dollar negative sentiment drag the greenback lower against the majors. This was after the FOMC seemed to distance itself from the need for an urgent rate hike. It seems that the negative pressure on the economy outweighs the need for commodity inflation controlling rate increases. Interest rate futures reacted accordingly with only a 25% chance of a rate hike in August (down from 40%).

Therefore, it stands to reason that this weeks NFP report will be very closely watched. We have been seeing US labor conditions deteriorate recently with a contraction in payrolls, a steadily rising trend in the number of Initial Jobless Claims and a rapid increase to 5.5% Unemployment Rate.  If the US labor market fails to show signs of improvement this week, and few economists are expecting that it will, then further US Dollar weakness is likely. The Non-Farm Employment Change, Unemployment Rate and Average Hourly Earnings data releases have all been moved to Thursday July 3rd because of the US Independence Day holiday on Friday July 4th.

Also due on Thursday is the ECB Interest Rate Announcement. Rates are expected to increase from 4.00% to 4.25% as the ECB looks to counteract increasing inflation. With the CPI Flash Estimate expected to increase to 3.9% YoY (release on Monday June 30th at 11:00 CET) the hike is almost a done deal. As usual traders will be watching the ECB commentary at the press conference held later in the day. It is due to take place at the same time as the US labor releases so extreme volatility is expected.

Elsewhere we have a busy week in store for the CAD, NZD, GBP and AUD.

Trading in the Canadian Dollar will be influenced by oil prices and also Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Ivey PMI. The latter may see slightly less volatility than normal as it falls on the US holiday. The week will be cut slightly short in Canada too because of the Canada Day holiday on Tuesday July 1st.

High volatility will be seen in the New Zealand Dollar at the beginning of the week with Building Consents and Business Confidence both due to hit the wire. Trading in the NZDUSD is likely to be dominated by US data arriving later in the week however.

The GBP benefited last week from BOE comments about inflation. This week we will see Nationwide House Prices, Manufacturing PMI, the Halifax House Price Index and Services PMI from the UK. Each of these releases is expected to create high market volatility.

Volatility in the Australian Dollar will benefit this week from the releases of the RBA Interest Rate Statement (expected to remain on hold at 7.25%), Building Approvals, Retail Sales and Trade Balance data.

This week's high volatility events are as follows (all events are London time, UK DST, GMT+1):

Sunday: New Zealand Building Consents (23:45)
Monday: New Zealand Business Confidence (04:00)
Canadian GDP (13:30)
Tuesday: Japanese Tankan Large Manufacturers Index (00:50)
RBA Interest Rate Statement (05:30)
Nationwide House Price Index (07:00)
UK Manufacturing PMI (09:30)
US ISM Manufacturing Prices (15:00)
Wednesday: Australian Building Approvals (02:30)
Australian Retail Sales (02:30)
US ADP Non-Farm Employment Change (13:15)
Thursday: Australian Trade Balance (02:30)
Swiss CPI (06:45)
Halifax House Price Index (NTS)
UK Services PMI (09:30)
ECB Interest Rate Announcement (12:45)
ECB Press Conference (13:30)
US Non-Farm Employment Change (13:30)
US Unemployment Rate (13:30)
US ISM Non-Manufacturing Composite (15:00)
Friday: Ivey PMI (15:00)