Weekly Forex Review

The following table lists the key economic data and other events that came out during the week of November 10th through November 14th, 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, November 10th

• 1:30am AUD Home Loans -0.7% versus -0.3% expected.  The currency fell.
• 2:30am CNY CPI 1.6% versus 1.6% expected.
• 2:30am CNY PPI -2.2% versus -1.9% expected.
• 2:15pm CAD Housing Starts 184K versus 200K expected.  The currency rose.

Tuesday, November 11th

• 12:50am JPY Current Account 0.41T versus 0.03T expected.  The currency fell.
• 1:30am AUD NAB Business Confidence 4 versus last 5 expected.  The currency rose.
• 1:30am AUD HPI 1.5% versus 1.6% expected.  The currency rose.
• All Day EUR French Bank Holiday
• All Day CAD Bank Holiday
• All Day USD Bank Holiday
• 9:00pm NZD RBNZ Financial Stability Report noted that, "The balance of risks facing the financial system has changed over the past six months. Pressures in the housing market have moderated, partly in response to the implementation of macro-prudential policy in late 2013 and the tightening of monetary policy in early 2014. However, risks to the dairy sector have intensified.”  The currency rose.
• 9:05pm NZD RBNZ Deputy Governor Grant Spencer said that, "The Reserve Bank is also a provider of payment and settlement services. Our role as the supplier of currency is widely known and notes and coins are still used to make a significant proportion of retail payments. We are also the operators of the Exchange Settlement Account System (ESAS) and the securities depository and settlement system, NZClear. We are currently undertaking a strategic review of these two systems and will be releasing a progress report this week. But this is not my topic today." The currency rose.

Wednesday, November 12th

• 12:30am AUD Westpac Consumer Sentiment 1.9% versus 0.9% expected.  The currency rose.
• 12:50am JPY Tertiary Industry Activity 1.0% versus 0.9% expected.  The currency rose.
• 1:30am AUD Wage Price Index 0.6% versus 0.6% expected.  The currency rose.
• 9:00am USD FOMC Member Plosser said that, "As noted by the FOMC in the October 2014 statement, the Committee believes it is unlikely that inflation will remain persistently below our long-term goal. The FOMC has stated that it expects the inflation rate to rise gradually to the 2 percent target, and I agree with that assessment. However, over the next quarter or two, headline inflation is likely to ease somewhat, reflecting the decline in the dollar price of oil and other temporary factors. But looking through such transitory changes in relative prices, the FOMC sees underlying inflation gradually moving toward its 2 percent target."  The currency rose.
• 10:30am GBP Average Earnings Index 1.0% versus 0.9% expected.  The currency fell.
• 10:30am GBP Claimant Count Change -20.4K versus -24.9K expected.  The currency fell.
• 10:30am GBP Unemployment Rate 6.0% versus 5.9% expected.  The currency rose.
• 11:00am EUR Industrial Production 0.6% versus 0.6% expected.  The currency fell.
• 11:30am GBP BOE Governor Mark Carney said that, "Markets still expect Bank Rate to increase, but to a more limited extent and at a more gradual pace than they did in August. Real five-year, five-year forward rates are around ½ percentage point lower than in August. With an increasingly well-functioning banking system, that change in market expectations is being passed through to the interest rates faced by British households and businesses. As one example, fixed mortgage rates have fallen to record lows.”  The currency fell.
• 11:30am GBP BOE Inflation Report noted that, "Inflation has fallen further below the MPC’s 2% target, reflecting the impact of lower food, energy and import prices and some continued drag from domestic slack. Inflation is expected to remain below the target in the near term, and is more likely than not to fall temporarily below 1% at some point over the next six months. It then rises gradually back to the target as external pressures fad and unit labour cost growth picks up. The MPC’s guidance on the expected path for Bank Rate continues to apply."  The currency fell.
• 5:25pm CAD Governing Council Member Schembri said that, "Our objective: To safeguard confidence in the value of money by keeping inflation low, stable and predictable. Under normal circumstances, one instrument to work with: the policy rate. Policy rate decisions announced eight times a year on a fixed schedule, A flexible exchange rate – an essential component of inflation - targeting regime, transparency improves regime’s effectiveness.”  The currency rose.
• 6:00pm USD FOMC Member Kocherlakota said that, "By most usual economic metrics, the oil boom has been associated with a large improvement in the North Dakota economy. If we go back to 2006, per capita real gross state product (GSP) was about 10 percent lower in North Dakota than U.S. per capita real gross domestic product (GDP). Over the next seven years, though, North Dakota per capita real GSP grew rapidly—so much so that by 2013, it was about 40 percent higher than U.S. per capita real GDP." The currency rose.
• 7:01pm USD 10-year Bond Auction 2.37 average yield with a 2.5 bid to cover ratio versus last average yield 2.38 percent with a 2.5 bid to cover ratio expected.  The currency rose.
• 10:30pm NZD Business NZ Manufacturing Index 59.3 versus last 58.1 expected.  The currency rose.

Thursday, November 13th

• 12:50am JPY Core Machinery Orders 2.9% versus -1.0% expected.  The currency fell.
• 1:00am AUD MI Inflation Expectations 4.1% versus last 3.4% expected.  The currency was unchanged.
• 2:30am AUD RBA Assist Governor Kent said that, "For economists, the term recovery fits within the realm of business cycle analysis. At one extreme, it implies that the economy is near a low point in the cycle with the prospect of much better conditions ahead. A less extreme case would be one where growth has been below its trend (or potential) pace for a time, leading to a rise in unemployment and spare productive capacity more generally. In both cases, a period of above-trend growth would be required to reduce the unemployment rate and make use of that spare capacity."  The currency was unchanged.
• 6:30am CNY Industrial Production 7.7% versus 8.0% expected.
• 6:30am CNY Fixed Asset Investment 15.9% versus 16.0% expected.
• 9:15am CHF PPI -0.1% versus -0.2% expected.  The currency rose.
• 2:30pm CAD NHPI 0.1% versus 0.2% expected.  The currency fell.
• 2:30am USD Weekly Initial Jobless Claims 290K versus 282K expected.  The currency fell.
• 4:00pm USD JOLTS Job Openings 4.74M versus 4.75M expected.  The currency fell.
• 5:00pm USD Crude Oil Inventories -1.7M versus last 0.5M expected.  The currency fell.
• 5:05pm CAD Governing Council Member Wilkins said that, "The form of money we know best is bank notes. They were issued primarily by commercial banks in Canada and the United States before those countries created central banks in the early 20th century. These privately-issued bank notes ultimately failed to provide what the economy needed and so central banks were given this responsibility. The Bank of Canada has been issuing bank notes since 1935. The cash you have in your wallets perfectly meets the three criteria of money. It is accepted almost everywhere, there’s very little counterfeiting, and the issuer - the central bank - won’t go bankrupt. We also target inflation, which means that the internal value of money is predictable." The currency rose.

Friday, November 14th

• 7:30am EUR French Preliminary GDP 0.3% versus 0.1% expected.  The currency rose.
• 8:00am EUR German Preliminary GDP 0.1% versus 0.1% expected.  The currency rose.
• 8:45am EUR French Preliminary Non-Farm Payrolls -0.2% versus 0.2% expected.  The currency rose.
• 9:02am CNY New Loans 548B versus 615B expected.
• 10:00am EUR Italian Preliminary GDP -0.1% versus -0.1% expected.  The currency rose.
• 11:00am EUR EZ Final CPI 0.4% versus 0.4% expected.  The currency rose.
• 11:00am EUR EZ Flash GDP 0.2% versus 0.1% expected.  The currency rose.
• 2:30pm CAD Manufacturing Sales 2.1% versus 1.3% expected.  The currency rose.
• 2:30pm USD Core Retail Sales 0.3% versus 0.2% expected.  The currency rose.
• 2:30pm USD Retail Sales 0.3% versus 0.2% expected.  The currency rose.
• 2:30pm USD Import Prices -1.3% versus -1.7% expected.  The currency rose.
• 3:55pm USD Preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment 89.4 versus 87.3 expected.  The currency rose.
• 4:00pm USD Business Inventories 0.3% versus 0.3% expected.  The currency rose.
• 4:00pm USD Mortgage Delinquencies 5.85% versus last 6.04% expected.  The currency rose.

Saturday, November 15th

• All Day ALL G20 Meetings have not yet occurred. Hawkish statements will benefit the relevant currency.

Technical Recap for the Majors This Week

EUR/USD:
Forecast: Mildly Higher
Actual: Mildly Lower from a 1.24626 open to a 1.24829 close.

USD/JPY:
Forecast: Mildly Lower
Actual: Mildly lower from a 114.464 open to a 116.522 close.
    
GBP/USD:
Forecast: Mildly Higher
Actual: Lower from a 1.58804 open to a 1.56532 close.

AUDUSD:
Forecast: Lower
Actual: Mildly lower from a 0.86402 open to a 0.87292 close.

USDCAD:
Forecast: Mildly Higher
Actual: Mildly higher from a 1.13246 open to a 1.12985 close.

NZD/USD:
Forecast: Lower
Actual: Mildly lower from a 0.7764 open to a 0.7904 close.

Disclaimer: Trading Foreign Exchange on margin carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all investors. The possibility exists that you could lose more than your initial deposit. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you.