Midweek in the forex markets: a quick update

David Hobart

With the foreign exchange markets now quickly heading towards the midweek point, it’s time to check and see what’s on the horizon on Wednesday and later in the week.

Today (Wednesday), there will be a speech from the US Federal Reserve’s Chair, Jerome Powell.

This is expected to come at 5pm GMT.

It will be quickly followed by a set of meeting minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee, which is expected at 6pm GMT.

Looking ahead to Thursday, a meeting of the EcoFin group – which brings together the finance ministers of each European member state – will take place at some stage during the day.

Also on Thursday, there will be a series of data releases which could offer some insight into the performance of the UK economy.

Manufacturing production figures for August will be out at 8:30am GMT, and these are expected to show a year on year change from -0.6% to -0.7%.

Industrial production figures for the same period will be out at 8:30am GMT and are expected to show no change from -0.9% on a year on year basis.

A speech from the Bank of England’s governor Mark Carney is expected at 9:20am GMT.

Looking ahead to lunchtime, the usual round of US jobless claims data is expected at 12:30pm GMT.

Continuing jobless claims for the dates around 27th September will be out first and are expected to show a change from 1,651,00 to 1,653,000.

Initial jobless claims for the dates around 4th October are due out at the same time and are expected to show no change from their previous position of 219,000.

US consumer price index data for September will be out at this time too and is due to show a year on year rise from 1.7% to 1.8%.

Excluding food and energy, this is expected to show no change at all from its previous year on year position of 2.4%.

Canada’s new housing price index for August will be out at 12:30pm GMT and is predicted to show a change month on month from -0.1% to 0%.

A speech from the Federal Reserve’s Neel Kashkari will be out at 4:15pm GMT.

He is president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and hence serves on the Federal Open Market Committee.

Another speech from a US central banker is expected later in the day.

Loretta J. Mester, who is the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, will speak at 9:30pm GMT.

Over the Atlantic, there’ll be a speech from Philip Lane, who sits on the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.

This will take place at 5:30pm GMT.

The day will be rounded off by some figures from New Zealand.

Electronic card retail sales data for September, which is a common release in New Zealand, is due out at 9:45pm GMT.

This is expected to reveal a year on year change from 2.8% to 0.5%.

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David Hobart
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