As we trade towards the final days of the year, the market is seeing lighter volume due to the shortened week. The Economic Calendar is light for the days ahead. However, there are still data releases and traders are taking positions.
US Oil Rig Counts from Baker Hughes was released on Friday evening. The headline number remained unchanged at 747. Natural Gas came in at 184 against the previous figure of 183. Totals were 931 against the previous 930. WTI Crude moved very little after the data release and finished the session on Friday at around $58.31. However, Oil gained after a pipe line in Libya was sabotaged on Boxing Day. The explosion damaged a pipe line feeding the port of Es Sider and reducing supply by 90,000 bpd. The price gained $1 to trade at the highest levels since June 2015 and stopped short of the $60.00 mark.
US S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (YoY) (Oct) was out on Tuesday at 6.4% v 6.3% from a previous reading of 6.2%. GBP/USD moved higher with the data from 1.33502 to 1.33677. An hour and 30 minutes later, Dallas FED Manufacturing Business Index (Dec) data came in at 29.7 v 20.0 expected. The previous data was 19.4. This sent GBP/USD higher again to the 1.33748 area where there was a brief pause before the next leg up commenced.
Coming up on Thursday 28th, US initial Jobless Claims are expected to come in at 240K, down from the previous 245K. US EIA Crude Oil Stocks data will be out. The Forecast is for -5.504M compared to -6.495M last week.
EUR/USD is up 0.19% overnight, trading around 1.18811.
USD/JPY is little changed in early session trading at around 113.197.
GBP/USD is flat trading around 1.33833.
USD/CHF is largely unchanged this morning trading around 0.98897
Gold is unchanged in early morning trading at around $1,282.50.
WTI is down 0.17%, trading around $59.76.
Major data releases for today:
At 07:00 GMT Swiss UBS Consumption Indicator (Nov) is expected with the prior number of 1.54.
At 11:00 GMT Swiss ZEW Survey – Expectations (Dec) will be released. The previous number was 40.7. Any deviation from this number may create volatility in Swiss Franc crosses.
At 15:00 GMT US Pending Home Sales (MoM) (Nov) expected at -0.5% from a prior reading of 3.5%. Pending Home Sales (YoY) (Nov) data will also be released. Last month this figure was 1.2%. USD pairs may see movement in price action as a result of data missing forecasts.