In this mad forex week, Wednesday is relatively a “calm before the storm”. But it’s only relatively, since there are a few important releases today as well, that could help the Euro decide if it’s really breaking out…
Australia, the country down under with up over interest rates, showed a surprising contraction: GDP fell by 0.5%, contrary to early expectations for a rise. This comes one day after Retail Sales in Australia were good, and interest rates were surprisingly kept unchanged.
In Britain, Nationwide Consumer Confidence stands at 43 points, slightly better than 38 that was expected, and better than last month. GBP/USD rests above 1.40.
Later in Britain, the highly regarded Services PMI. It’s predicted to decline to 41.6 points. Maybe this will make the break under 1.40 sustainable.
PMI data will also be released in Europe, were Final Services PMI is expected to remain unchanged, at 38.9 points. EUR/USD broke the 1.25 support line during the night, but retracted back above that line at the moment.
In the US, the ADP Non-Farm Employment Change is expected to fall by 620K, 100K more than lst month. This figure, which is a warm up for the NFP on Friday, proved to be non consistent in the last months. So it should be taken with a big grain of salt.
At 15:00 GMT, the ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI will be released in the US. Monday’s similar figure, the ISM Manufacturing PMI surprised. So, we can also expected more than the official expectations of 41.2. Watch how the market moves in the hour or two after this release.
Apart from indicators, there are some speeches that are due today: US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will talk about the fiscal 2010 budget. Also Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart will be talking, later in the afternoon.
Another notable release today is the American Beige Book used to show the state of the economy in the different sectors.
That’s it for today. Happy Forex Trading!