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Weekly Forex Market Recap: May 11th-15th

Published 05/17/2015, 02:21 AM
Updated 07/09/2023, 06:31 AM

Key Fundamental Forex Events for the Week of May 11th through May 15th
The following table lists the key economic data and other events that came out during the week of May 11th through May 15th, with release times displayed for the GMT time zone.
The list also indicates how much each release deviated from the market consensus forecast upon release, as well as what the affected major currency pair or pairs did after each event or set of events.

Monday May 11th
2:30am AUD NAB Business Confidence 3 versus 3 expected. The currency fell.
All Day EUR Eurogroup Meetings: the IMF noted that, “Greece is on track to run a large primary budget deficit, implying the debt would start to rise without further austerity measures or debt relief. Both the Greek government and the euro-area creditors are likely to be against further debt relief.” The currency fell.
12:00pm GBP Official Bank Rate 0.50% versus 0.50% expected. The currency rose.
12:00pm GBP Asset Purchase Facility 375B versus 375B expected. The currency rose.

Tuesday May 12th
2:30am AUD Home Loans 1.6% versus 1.1% expected. The currency rose.
9:30am GBP Manufacturing Production 0.4% versus 0.3% expected. The currency rose.
10:30am AUD Annual Budget Release noted that,

"The Australian economy is set to strengthen over coming years, as we transition from a mining investment led boom and non-mining sectors step up to drive growth. The global economic outlook is strengthening, and households and businesses are already benefiting from historically low interest rates, a lower exchange rate, and lower petrol and electricity prices. The Government's historic free trade agreements will help unlock new trade opportunities throughout the region. Australia's biggest-ever infrastructure programme is also being rolled out across the country to improve connectivity and the productive capacity of the economy."

The currency rose.
All Day EUR ECOFIN Meetings: UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said that,

“We come here with a very clear mandate to improve Britain’s relationship with the rest of the EU, and to reform the EU so that it creates jobs and increases living standards for all its citizens. I don’t think anyone’s now in any doubt that we will hold that referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union having conducted these negotiations. We go into the negotiations aiming to be constructive and engaged, but also resolute and firm.”

The currency rose.
3:00pm GBP NIESR GDP Estimate 0.4% versus 0.3% expected. The currency rose.
3:00pm USD JOLTS Job Openings 4.99M versus 5.16M expected. The currency fell.
5:45pm USD FOMC Member Williams said that,

“The fundamentals are sound. The underlying momentum in job growth remains solid. What I see when I look at the data that strip out the short-term volatility is an economy with good momentum, that’s nearing full employment, with an inflation trend that’s running about 1 1/2%”.

The currency fell.
10:00pm NZD RBNZ Financial Stability Report noted that,

“With the financial system facing significant and increasing risks, it is critical that banks maintain their capital and liquidity buffers, and apply prudent lending standards. Banks should ensure that any new capital instruments continue to maintain loss-bearing capacity, in view of the significant risks the sector faces. The Reserve Bank plans to undertake a review of current bank capital requirements in light of global and domestic changes affecting the banking system in recent years.”

The currency rose.
10:05pm NZD RBNZ Governor Wheeler said that,

“We still think the exchange rate is unjustified and unsustainable. We'd like to see more movement downward in the exchange rate.”

The currency rose.

Wednesday May 13th
12:50am JPY Current Account 2.07T versus 1.34T expected. The currency fell.
2:30am AUD Wage Price Index 0.5% versus 0.6% expected. The currency rose.
6:30am CNY Industrial Production 5.9% versus 6.1% expected.
6:30am CNY Fixed Asset Investment 12.0% versus 13.6% expected.
6:30am EUR French Preliminary GDP 0.6% versus 0.4% expected. The currency rose.
7:00am EUR German Preliminary GDP 0.3% versus 0.5% expected. The currency rose.
9:00am EUR Italian Preliminary GDP 0.3% versus 0.2% expected. The currency rose.
9:03am CNY New Loans 708B versus 1210B expected.
9:30am GBP Average Earnings Index 1.9% versus 1.7% expected. The currency rose.
9:30am GBP Claimant Count Change -12.6K versus -20.5K expected. The currency rose.
9:30am GBP Unemployment Rate 5.5% versus 5.5% expected. The currency rose.
10:00am EUR Flash GDP 0.4% versus 0.5% expected. The currency rose.
10:30am GBP BOE Governor Carney said that,

“Recent developments support the MPC’s view that a temporary period of falling prices, driven by a few components of the CPI, should not be mistaken for the potentially damaging process of widespread and persistent deflation. The proportion of the CPI’s components showing positive inflation is much the same as it was during the decade prior to the crisis. More fundamentally, the economy is growing, unemployment is falling, earnings growth is improving and there is no evidence of household spending being delayed.”

The currency rose.
10:30am GBP BOE Inflation Report noted that,

“CPI inflation was 0.0% in March 2015 as falls in food, energy and other import prices continued to weigh on the annual rate. Inflation is likely to rise notably around the turn of the year as those factors begin to drop out. Inflation is then projected to rise further as wage and unit labour cost growth picks up and the effect of sterling’s appreciation dissipates. The MPC judges that it is currently appropriate to set policy so that it is likely inflation will return to the 2% target within two years. Conditional on Bank Rate following the path currently implied by market yields — such that it rises gradually over the forecast period — that is judged likely to be achieved.”

The currency rose.
10:33am EUR German 10-Y Bond Auction 0.65|1.3 versus 0.13|1.5 expected. The currency rose.
1:30pm USD Core Retail Sales 0.1% versus 0.4% expected. The currency fell.
1:30pm USD Retail Sales 0.0% versus 0.3% expected. The currency fell.
1:30pm USD Import Prices -0.3% versus 0.3% expected. The currency fell.
3:00pm USD Business Inventories 0.1% versus 0.2% expected. The currency fell.
3:30pm USD Crude Oil Inventories -2.2M versus -0.1M expected. The currency fell.
6:01pm USD 10-Year Bond Auction 2.24|2.7 versus 1.93|2.6 expected. The currency fell.
11:30pm NZD Business NZ Manufacturing Index 51.8 versus 54.6 expected. The currency rose.
11:45pm NZD Retail Sales 2.7% versus 1.6% expected. The currency rose.
11:45pm NZD Core Retail Sales 2.9% versus 1.5% expected. The currency rose.

Thursday May 14th
All Day CHF Bank Holiday
All Day EUR French Bank Holiday
All Day EUR German Bank Holiday
1:30pm CAD NHPI 0.0% versus 0.2% expected. The currency rose.
1:30pm USD PPI -0.4% versus 0.1% expected. The currency fell.
1:30pm USD Weekly Initial Jobless Claims 264K versus 272K expected. The currency fell.
1:30pm USD Core PPI -0.2% versus 0.1% expected. The currency fell.
4:00pm EUR ECB President Draghi said that,

“Over the past year the ECB has taken a series of major monetary policy measures, culminating in our decision in January this year to expand our asset purchases towards public sector securities. While the aim of these measures is the same as it has always been – maintaining price stability over the medium-term – their form is unprecedented for our central bank. And as such our policy decisions have become more complex in two key ways. First, as interest rates have reached their effective lower bound in the euro area, we have become more constrained in our ability to deploy conventional monetary policy tools. This has required us to develop new instruments to achieve the same results. Second, because the use of these new instruments can have different consequences than conventional monetary policy, in particular with respect to the distribution of wealth and the allocation of resources, it has become more important that those consequences are identified, weighed and where necessary mitigated.”

The currency rose.

Friday May 15th
4:40am JPY BOJ Governor Kuroda said that,

“The decline in real interest rates will stimulate private demand, which will lead to an upturn in the economy, improving the output gap. Then, the improvement in the output gap, together with a rise in inflation expectations, will increase inflation rates. As people experience actual price increases, their inflation expectations will rise further. Meanwhile, on the financial front, asset prices — such as stock prices and foreign exchange rates — reflect these developments in economic activity and prices or else incorporate future developments.”

The currency rose.
8:15am CHF PPI -2.1% versus -0.1% expected. The currency rose.
1:30pm CAD Manufacturing Sales 1.2% versus -1.7% expected. The currency rose.
1:30pm CAD Foreign Securities Purchases 7.23B versus 9.27B expected. The currency rose.
1:30pm USD Empire State Manufacturing Index 5.1 versus -1.2 expected. The currency fell.
2:15pm USD Capacity Utilization Rate 78.4% versus 78.4% expected. The currency fell.
2:15pm USD Industrial Production 0.1% versus -0.6% expected. The currency fell.
3:00pm USD Preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment 95.8 versus 95.9 expected. The currency fell.

Technical Recap for the Majors This Week

EUR/USD:
Forecast: Lower
Actual: Higher from a 1.12004 open to a 1.1436 close.

USD/JPY:
Forecast: Mildly Lower
Actual: Mildly lower from a 119.769 open to 119.287 close.

GBP/USD:
Forecast: Lower
Actual: Higher from a 1.54520 open to a 1.58024 close.

AUD/USD:
Forecast: Mildly Lower
Actual: Higher from a 0.79243 open to a 0.80433 close.

USD/CAD:
Forecast: Mildly Higher
Actual: Mildly Lower from a 1.20860 open to a 1.20081 close.

NZD/USD:
Forecast: Lower
Actual: Mildly Higher from a 0.7439 open to a 0.7474 close.

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