It was another relatively quiet day across financial markets yesterday, with very little in the way of economic data releases and no real fresh direction in and of the various Geo-Political issues currently affecting the market. We saw a resumption of the move higher in the greenback as the US 10-year yield once again topped 3% and the equity markets saw little change on the day with Asian markets expected to open close to flat.
Things should start to liven up the markets today as we see and increase in risk events, first up in Australia we have the RBA’s Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes due out and while we expect little from these, we are set to hear from Assistant Governor Guy Debelle on more than one occasion today and that could add some flavour to the Aussie market with any further dovish sentiment adding pressure on a beleaguered Aussie dollar. Later in the session we’ve got Chinese Industrial Production and Fixed Asset Investment data due.
Into the London session and we have German Prelim GDP numbers out followed by the key UK employment data. The key event risk for the day however is due in the US session with the US Retail Sales numbers due for release with market expectation at 0.4%. Dollar bulls and indeed Fed Hawks will be looking for a strong number here to compensate for last weeks poor CPI numbers. Another miss with this data could see further downside for the dollar and expectations for a possible 4th rate hike this year significantly pull back.