A Fresh Forex Trading Week is on the Cards

A new foreign exchange trading week kicks off today (Monday) – and with several events scheduled into the calendar, it’s well worth preparing ahead by looking at the calendar.

Trading in Asia may well slow down over the course of the day thanks to the Respect for the Aged day Bank Holiday in Japan, which is due to take place.

Other parts of Asia will not be celebrating the event, however, and will keep their banks open.

Chinese industrial production information for August will be out at 2am GMT and is expected to show a year on year change from 4.8% to 5.2%.

Italian consumer price index data for August will be out at 8am GMT.

This is expected to hold firm on a year on year basis with no change from its previous position of 0.5%.

Foreign portfolio investment data will be out of Canada at 12:30pm GMT, covering the month of July.

This is likely to round off what is expected to be a relatively slow day in the forex markets.

Tuesday, however, is expected to show a spike in activity.

Chinese house price index data for August will be out at some point over the course of the day and was last recorded at 9.7%.

The minutes of the last meeting of the Reserve Bank of Australia will be out at 1:30am GMT.

Traders are likely to pay close attention to this as a guide towards future directions the bank may take.

Next up will be the ZEW survey results from Germany, both of which are out at 9am GMT and will cover September.

The current situation metric will track investor sentiment and is expected to go from -13.5 to -15.

Economic sentiment, however, is expected to go from -44.1 to 38.0

Overall European economic sentiment data for September will be released by ZEW at the same time.

This was last recorded at -43.6 – although now that the immediate power of the European Central Bank to adjust interest rates in response to economic datasets has waned, this could be seen as less important to traders.

A speech from the ECB’s Benoît Cœuré, who sits on its Executive Board, is due to take place at 5:10pm GMT.

The day will be rounded off by an imports and exports measurement for August out of Japan.

It is expected that the imports measurement will show a change from -1.2% to -11.2% on a year on year basis.

Exports, meanwhile, are expected to go from -1.5% to -10.9%.

Wednesday will see a retail price index release from the UK at 8:30am GMT.

Traders will be able to find out whether or not Brexit has impacted the prices set by the country’s retailers, and if so to what degree.

Perspective will be crucial here: analysts have forecast that the index will move year on year from 2.8% to 2.6%, reflecting an overall downward trend.

However, month on month, a change from 0.0% to 0.7% is expected – suggesting a recent, and sudden, spike.