The markets were relatively quiet throughout yesterday’s trading and have once again finished the day on that back foot after poorer than expected Retail Sales data out of the US – the last major economic indicator before next week’s Fed meeting. The equity markets once again finished up their trading day’s in the red and that sentiment looks set to push through into the Asian session. The greenback is still struggling to make headway but is trading at familiar recent levels, but it’s really about the ‘risk’ trades in the currency market at the moment.
There does seem to be some light at the end of the tunnel though, President Trump is set to announce Larry Kudlow as his economic advisor in place of Gary Cohn. As a free trade advocate he may not always see eye to eye with the President especially on tariff issues but the market will take this as a positive move and he does share similar views on tax and regulatory matters.
Looking ahead to today’s trading and we have already seen some worse than expected data out of NZ. The GDP number came out 0.2% to the downside of expectation and the kiwi is under pressure into the start of the Asian session. It’s quiet in terms of economic data in Asia today but as we enter the London session we have the SNB Libor rate and Policy statement which could add some volatility to the CHF. We do have Philly Fed and Empire State manufacturing indexes out in the US session, but once again traders will be focusing on news wires and any sentiment change for the next marker direction.