Forex Weekly Outlook – October 18-22

A busy week awaits forex traders with important American events such as Unemployment Claims, TIC Long-Term Purchases, Building Permits and The Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index. Here is an outlook on the major market movers.

EUR/USD made an impressive break above 1.40 last week and back above the trend line while the dollar buckled; a second round of quantitative easing in the US depreciated the dollar and Unemployment claims on Thursday surged to 462K giving further cause for concern about the USD. Let’s see what will happen this week to the EUR/USD pair with the pessimistic German ZEW Economic Sentiment index and the optimistic German Ifo Business Climate.

1. US TIC Long-Term Purchases: Monday, 14:00. The result of this report usually has a high impact on USD trading. A higher then expected reading of 61.2B made a favorable impact on the greenback in the previous month. Another rise will provide a further boost the USD.
2. German ZEW Economic Sentiment: Tuesday, 10:00. This survey of German institutional investors and analysts show a bleak forecast for the German economy plunging to -4.3 in September after Analysts predicted 10.7 this is a huge drop compared to the positive 14.0 figure in August indicating pessimism. This drop is largely due to the weak USD and the currency exchange problems within the Euro-zone. However the risk of a double dip remains low for Germany. A further drop to -7 is expected now.
3. US Building Permits: Tuesday, 13:30. Permits, an indicator of future activity signals residential construction will stay close to record lows with 569,000 permits issued in the previous month. A small increase to 0.58M is expected now.
4. Canadian Rate decision: Tuesday, 14:00. The Bank of Canada expects the economic recovery in Canada to be more gradual than it had predicted in its July Monetary Policy Report although consumption and investment have evolved largely as anticipated. The previous inflation rate grew by 1.00% following 0.75% rise in July. September’s inflation rate is expected to remain 1.00%. A gradual increase is inflation rate will provide backing to the Canadian growing economy.
5. British MPC Meeting Minutes: Wednesday, 9:30. The previous minutes showed that some members were in favor of expanding the economic stimulus measures over raising interest rates. The Committee with BOE Governor Mervyn King and new MPC member David Miles voted 8 to 1 against raising the Official Bank Rate from its current level of 0.50% and unanimously voted to keep the Asset Purchase Facility at 200 Billion Pounds. Andrew Sentence opposed claiming a raise of interest will help boost the growing British economy. Nevertheless the central bank recognized that conditions in the British economy had improved by showing a recovery in both U.K. stocks and housing. This is a hopeful sign for the British economy.
6. British Retail Sales Thursday, 09:30. UK retail sales experienced a surprise fall in August, the first drop since January. Sales fell 0.5% from July, A possible cause is consumers concerns about tax rises and budget cuts. A 0.4% rise is expected now.
7. US Unemployment Claims: Thursday, 13:30. An unexpected increase in the number of unemployed edged up to 462K last week due to slow economy fewer jobs are created and workers are laid off. This figure is expected to decrease to 455K this week.
8. US Philly Fed Manufacturing Index: Thursday, 15:00. The Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index dropped -0.7 in September contrary to economists forecast of 0.0 following a 7.7 dive in August pointing to contracting activity in the market. A small rise of 0.2 is expected now.
9. German Ifo Business Climate: Friday, 09:00. Results of the September 2010 Ifo Business Survey show a positive and optimistic trend with a slight improvement in German business climate scoring a better than expected 106.8 points 0.1 points more than in August. The Ifo Business Climate for industry and trade in Germany has again slightly improved in September. The firms are again more satisfied with their business situation than in the previous month. For the near future they continue to be optimistic although not quite as much as in August. The business high continues. This stability is likely to continue this month as well with a small decrease to 106.5.
10. G20 meetings: Friday and Saturday.   Following the IMF meetings last week dealing with the currency exchange issue, the G20 meetings will have to continue working together to remove this cloud hovering over global economic relations.

That’s it for the major events this week.

Further reading:

• For EUR/USD, check out  the  Euro/Dollar forecast.
• For the Japanese yen, read the  USD/JPY forecast.
• For GBP/USD  (cable), look into the  British Pound forecast.
• For the Australian dollar (Aussie), check out the  AUD forecast.
• For the New Zealand dollar (kiwi), read the  NZD forecast.
• For USD/CAD (loonie), check out the  Canadian dollar forecast.

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