Weekly Outlook for 23-27 January

Following the sharp changes in the Forex markets, partly due the S&P’s announcement to cut the credit rating of France and Austria, this week will start with the news of S&P estimates a negative outlook for the European Union. During last week gold and silver prices increased, while energy commodities such as crude oil and natural gas prices declined. There are many news items to be published this week that could affect commodities and forex markets including: U.S. GDP growth rate for fourth quarter, U.S. new home sales report, EU’s monetary development,   FOMC meeting, and BOJ’s rate decision. Here is an economic news calendar forecast for the week of January 23rd to January 27th that highlights the main news items related to the U.S., U.K, Japan, Canada and Euro Area.   

(All times GMT):

  1. Monday 23rd of January tentative – Bank of Japan – Rate Decision and Monetary Policy Statement: The Bank of Japan will announce its interest rate decision and monetary policy decisions. Up to now, BOJ kept the interest rate unchanged at 0 to 0.1 percent. If the BOJ will introduce monetary stimulus plans, it could affect the forex and commodities markets seeing that Japan is among the leading countries in importing commodities such as gold, crude oil and natural gas;
  2. Tuesday 24th of January 09:00 – Euro Area Manufacturing PMI (December): In the last flash report regarding November 2011, the Euro Zone Manufacturing PMI was still below the 50 point mark and reached 46.9. This report will provide an indicator to the economic development  of the Euro zone’s manufacturing conditions and could affect the Euro/USD exchange rate trading consequently major commodities prices;
  3. Tuesday 24th of January 13:30 –Retails Sales Canada (November 2011): This report reports the development in the retails sales in Canada during November 2011. It may affect the USD/CAD exchange rate trading. In the last  report regarding October 2011, retails sales slightly rose by 1.0% to $38.6 billion; in volume terms the sales also went up during the month by 0.6%; gasoline station sales increased by 1.8% increase during October 2011 (see here the full report);
  4. Tuesday 24th of January 20:00 –Bank of England’s Governor King speaks: The governor of Bank of England will give a speech that could offer some insight to the recent BOE interest rate decision, the economic development of GB and the next steps of BOE; this speech may affect the British Pound trading (see here last statement);
  5. Wednesday 25th of January 09:00 – German Business Climate Survey: This survey projects the changes (on a monthly basis) in the business climate of Germany. In the recent report regarding December 2011, the business climate index continued to rise as it increased from 106.6 in November to 107.2 in December; if this upward trend continue, it could positively influence forex (Euro) and commodities traders;
  6. Wednesday 25th of January 09:30 – GB GDP Q4 2011: This report will present the quarterly growth rate of the British economy during the fourth quarter; during the previous quarter the GB economy grew by only 0.5% (Q-2-Q);
  7. Wednesday 25th of January 13:15 – ECB President Speaks: Following the last interest rate decision to keep the ECB rate unchanged at 1%, and the recent announcement of S&P to downgrade several EU countries’ credit rating, the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi will talk about these issues and will try to calm the financial community. This speech might affect the forex and commodities markets, if there will be interesting headlines from this speech ;
  8. Wednesday 25th of January 15:00 – U.S. Pending Home Sales: This report present the changes in pending home sales in the U.S. for December 2011; in the recent November report the pending home sales index increased by 7.3% compared with October’s index. These data are another indicator for the progress of the American real estate market;
  9. Wednesday 25th of January 15:30 – EIA Crude Oil Market Report: the EIA (Energy Information Administration) will publish its weekly report on the U.S oil and petroleum market for the week ending on January 20th; in last week’s report, the U.S petroleum & oil stockpiles decreased by 2 million barrels to 1,747.6 million barrels (see here the recent oil stockpiles review);
  10. Wednesday 25th of January 19:15 – FOMC Meeting (Statement): The FOMC will convene for the first time this year to decide on its rate and present an economic outlook for the U.S. economy ; currently there is little evidence that the FOMC will decide on another QE plan; the FOMC meeting and the statement that will follow could affect the forex markets and consequently also affect gold and silver prices;
  11. Thursday 26th of January 13:30 – U.S. Unemployment Claims: initial claims decreased by 50,000 to 352,000 claims for the week ending on January 14th; the number of insured unemployment also decreased by 215k to 3.432 million during the week of January 7th; the next report may affect forex and commodities markets;
  12. Thursday 26th of January 13:30 – U.S Department of Commerce – Core Durable Goods Report: This monthly report will examine the changes in U.S. orders of durable goods in the manufacturing sector during December. This report may indirectly present the changes in U.S. demand for commodities such as crude oil. During November 2011, manufactured durable goods sharply increased by $7.5 billion to $207.0 billion; Non-defense new orders for capital goods also rose by $5.9 billion to $78.7 billion (for the full report);
  13. Thursday 26th of January 15:00 – U.S. New Home Sales: This report will show the changes in new home sales  December 2011; in the previous report (November 2011), the sales of new homes reached an annual rate of 315,000 – a 1.6% increase compared with the number of new homes sold in October 2011; the sales in November 2011 was 9.8% above the home sales rate in November 2010; if this upward trend will continue, it may further indicate a moderate increase in the U.S real estate market and may also affect commodities prices;
  14. Thursday 26th of January 15:30 – EIA U.S. Natural Gas Market Report: this weekly report of the EIA on U.S. natural gas market will present the recent developments for the week ending on January 20th on natural gas storage, production, consumption and prices. In the last report, natural gas storage declined by 87 Bcf to 3,290 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states (see here the recent review on the natural gas market);
  15. Friday 27th of January 09:00 – Euro Area Monetary Development: This monthly report will show the development of the M3, M1 and loans to private sector in the Euro area during December 2011. In the previous November report, the annual growth rate for M3 sharply decreased to 2.0%. The M1 on the other hand rose to 2.1%. Finally, the annual growth rate of loans to private sector fell to 1.7% in November. If the M1 and M3 will fall in December  report it could serve as another indicator for the slowdown in the  Euro Area inflation and  may affect next month’s ECB’s interest rate decision (see here the last report);
  16. Friday 27th of January 10:30 – KOF Economic Barometer: this report offers an outlook of the Swiss economy in the months to come. In the recent press release, the report predicted that the Swiss Economy is headed towards a stagnation in 2012;
  17. Friday 27th of January 13:30 – First U.S GDP 4Q 2011 Estimate: This will be the first estimate of U.S’s fourth quarter 2011 real GDP growth. In the 3Q2011 the GDP growth rate reached 1.8%, compared with 1.3% increase at 2Q2011. This shows a slight increase in the growth rate for the US’s GDP. The current expectations are that the growth rate in the fourth quarter will be slightly higher than the third quarter’s. This news could have substantial effect on forex and commodities traders (for the final estimate of 3Q GDP).

For further reading:

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