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Weekly Forex Forecasts

Forex Weekly Outlook – August 3-7 2009

The first week when the new NFA rules are in effect is also packed with many major indicators. Rate decisions in Australia, Britain and Europe are the hottest events until Friday Non-Farm Payrolls – king of forex. There are lots more important events in the first week of August.

Last week closed with GDP for the second quarter being better than expected. A late “Friday effect” hurt the dollar but didn’t move the major currency pairs out of their ranges. This week’s busy calendar and the much-talked new NFA regulations might cause some “explosions”. Let’s dig into the most important figures this week. Take a deep breath:

Monday, August 3rd: German Retail Sales are expected to turn positive in the wake of the new forex trading week. In Switzerland,  SVME PMI is predicted to step up.

British  Manufacturing PMI is expected to rise but remain below 50. The all-important British Halifax HPI is predicted to turn positive as well.

In the US,  ISM Manufacturing PMI is predicted to rise to 46.5 and will be the key event of the day.

In New Zealand,  Labor Cost Index is predicted to rise once again.

Tuesday, August 4th:  Australia’s Retail Sales are expected to rise by a more modest pace than last month. Also note the Australian Commodity Prices. But those are only preludes to the main Aussie event.

The RBA isn’t expected to change the interest rate in Australia, leaving it at 3%, the highest in the West. So if there’s no surprise in the Cash Rate, traders will focus on the RBA Rate Statement.

Swiss CPI is expected to be negative. Like the rest of Europe, deflation is in control.

British  Construction PMI is predicted to rise yet again. At night, the  Nationwide Consumer Confidence is released and will be of interest to cable traders.

In the US,  Personal Spending is expected to continue rising slowly. The more interesting event is the  Pending Home Sales are expected to continue rising modestly as well.

Wednesday, August 5th: Australian  Trade Balance is predicted to continue showing a deficit, that is expected to deepen. The strong Chinese economy might boost this figure and result in a surprise.

Two critical British figures are due a the same time:  Manufacturing Production  is expected to remain unchanged, while  Services PMI is expected to continue rising after it crossed the pivotal 50 points mark.

ADP Non-Farm Employment Change is a preliminary figure to the Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday. It’s predicted to show a smaller loss of jobs, “only” 335K in the private sector.

This will be followed by the  ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI which is expected to take a step forward towards, and will complete Monday’s release. Also note the factory orders which are expected to drop.

Employment figures from New Zealand will be released towards the end of the day: Quarterly  Employment Change is predicted to fall by 0.6%, more modest than last time. The more worrying release is the Unemployment Rate which is expected to leap from 5% to 5.6%.

Thursday, August 6th: Following its neighbor, Australia will also release employment figures.  Employment Change is expected to fall by almost 18K jobs, less than last time. Here, the Unemployment Rate is expected to crawl up more slowly, from 5.8% to 6%.

It’s rate day in both Britain and the UK. British  Official Bank Rate starts with an expected unchanged rate of 0.5%, the historic low. Will the BOE hint on future hikes? Will Mervyn King shut down the Quantitative Easing program? The  MPC Rate Statement should give answers.

Jean-Claude Trichet’s ECB is expected to keep rates unchanged as well. The  Minimum Bid Rate isn’t predicted to budge from 1%, although Trichet sometimes surprises traders. He’ll be speaking at the  ECB Press Conference.

This week’s  Unemployment Claims are expected to climb once again, and touch the bad 600K mark. This also serves as a prelude for the NFP.

Friday, August 7th: After the rate decision and statement, the Glenn Stevens and co. will also release the  RBA Monetary Policy Statement to talk about the economy.

Swiss Unemployment Rate makes many countries jealous, but it’s also rising. It’s expected to rise to 3.9%.

British prices haven’t suffered deflation, at least not yet. PPI Input is expected to change the picture, with a fall of 0.8%. In Europe,  German Industrial Production is estimated to rise slowly.

Canadian employment expectations aren’t too good:  Employment Change is predicted to fall by 20K jobs. The  Unemployment Rate is expected to escalate to 8.8%, but still less than in the US. Another important Canadian figure is  Ivey PMI which is expected to fall to 55.3 points.

King of forex, Non-Farm Payrolls, is expected to show a significant improvement, and show a loss of “only” 333K jobs. Last time,  Non-Farm Employment Change (or NFP for short) fell by 467K. The accompanying figure,  Unemployment Rate,  is predicted to edge up to 9.6%, still less than 10% that President Barack Obama “promised”.

Those are the major figures for this extremely busy week. I’ll later post special coverages for a few specific currency pairs. Also stay tuned for daily outlooks.

Here’s a list of dos and don’ts regarding the new NFA regulations.

Further reading:

Yohay Elam

Yohay Elam

Yohay Elam: Founder, Writer and Editor I have been into forex trading for over 5 years, and I share the experience that I have and the knowledge that I've accumulated. After taking a short course about forex. Like many forex traders, I've earned a significant share of my knowledge the hard way. Macroeconomics, the impact of news on the ever-moving currency markets and trading psychology have always fascinated me. Before founding Forex Crunch, I've worked as a programmer in various hi-tech companies. I have a B. Sc. in Computer Science from Ben Gurion University. Given this background, forex software has a relatively bigger share in the posts.