Hi Folks.
Here is this week's forecast.
SUNDAY: Aside from noting a meaningless OPEC meeting listed as "All Day," the rest of the calendar simply notes that Australia and New Zealand are taking the day off for Easter Monday. So no news is good news, I guess.
MONDAY: Asian/London Session: The morning session continues the theme from Sunday as all the remaining countries and regions take the day off as well, although Spain manages to release their Unemployment Change at 3:00 a.m. my time on a day when no one is even open to place or take a trade. The evening session is a handful of 3rd tier numbers that don't generate more than 5-10 pips no matter how badly the real number misses from expectations. So the entire day is a bust.
USA Session: ISM Services PMI at 10:00 a.m. is the lone calendar entry, and given the lack of worldwide market participation this morning, don't expect much. Even if all the players were present and accounted for, the Services PMI rarely lands with the impact the Manufacturing PMI makes, so the fact about 90% of the trading world is home watching The View means this one likely won't generate much at all. But once again, it's the only game in town (ignoring the Spanish Unemployment number at 3 a.m.) so maybe it overperforms. But I seriously doubt it.
TUESDAY: Asian/London Session: After an extended long weekend, everyone is back at their desks, hands on mouses, ready to start firing in trades. Too bad the calendar isn't much help with this today. The opening entries (Japan's Leading Indicators at 1:00 a.m., followed by the Swiss Foreign Currency Reserves at 3:00) do nothing historically to move prices around. Then we get the Final Services PMI number from most of the players: Spain 3:15; Italy 3:45; France 3:50; Germany 3:55; Eurozone 4:00; and Great Britain 4:30 (along with the Euro Sentix Investor Confidence, which does nothing and can be ignored). Trend = Trade, No Trend = No Trade. Canada releases the Ivey PMI at 10:00 a.m., and the last 3 numbers were 16, 17 and 31 pips. I have that 20 pip minimum I like to use to filter out chronically bad numbers, but this one gets very close to qualifying, and if you can remember that you might not get all the way to 20 but you still might get very close, this one could be worth a trade. The remaining A/L numbers are a bust and not worth mentioning, and that includes the New Zealand Interest Rate announcement, which has generated 11, 11 and 9 pips the last 3 times it was on the calendar. So that Canadian Ivey PMI may be the only number worth watching today.
USA Session: A rather busy session, even if the contents are less than could be desired. That relatively new ADP Weekly Employment Change number at 8:15 a.m. gets the same respect from traders their Monthly number gets on the Wednesday before the NFP drops, which is to say Zero. Pass. Durable Goods at 8:30 shows up 13 days late, and that has sort of put a damper on trader interest. Over the last year Durable Goods has made at least a small splash upon release, usually because there seems to be no connection between the Expected number and the Actual number. If it's a huge miss again today, maybe we see some tradeable activity. But the delay takes away some of that steam, so don't count on this being the number that saves the day. The RCM/TIPP number is still a floater so if we don't know when it's dropping we can't do much with it, as usual. Consumer Credit at 3:00 historically does nothing to price action, and that ADP Oil Report at 4:30 is in the same boat, sort of, as it's a report and not a number. Fed Speak at 12:35 and 5:50 p.m. rounds out the day. Like I said, a lot of stuff and not much to expect from it.
WEDNESDAY: Asian/London Session: You may have noticed over the last few weeks that I kind of blow through the A/L session without much by way of comment on too many individual numbers. For whatever reason, we just don't see all that many Euro/Asian numbers that are designed to move things around. Off the top of my head I'd say 80-90% of the numbers that are worth watching are from Great Britain, with the rest just universally ignored by traders. And tonight is yet another prime example of that. There is not a single entry in the A/L session that is designed to move prices more than 5-10 pips after release, regardless of the actual number. So yet again, the entire session is one big Pass.
USA Session: Crude Oil at 10:30, a 10 year Bond Auction at 1:00 p.m., and the minutes from the last Fed Meeting dropping at 2:00 p.m. is all we have for the day. The Fed Minutes could create a sort of delayed response as they are analyzed and then possibly acted upon by the big trading houses. But from our spot under the table, scrounging for crumbs, there is nothing we can do with it.
THURSDAY: Asian/London Session: It should come as no surprise to anyone that the A/L session is yet again filled with Yellow folder numbers designed to clutter up the calendar without cluttering up the charts with big news-driven candles.
USA Session: Once again, we have a lot of "stuff" on calendar, but in a surprising twist, some of it is actually worth watching. 8:30 starts us off with a list of numbers, the two big ones being the Core PCE Price Index (allegedly still the Fed's favorite inflation measurement tool) and the Final GDP number. The rest can be ignored, although I should point out the Weekly Unemployment number has finally been downgraded to Beige Folder status, which probably means this week's number will be a barn burner and likely add/subtract 50 pips to the charts as soon as it drops. Just speculation but we are still waiting for the big numbers to start showing up. But as for the PCE and Final GDP, either one can move things around, and if both come out as a surprise, we could get a 2-fer out of it, with tradeable price action at 8:30 when the numbers drop, and again at 9:30 a.m. when the Indices open. After 8:30 the quality of the numbers takes a screaming nosedive and those can be ignored. It's all about the 8:30 entries today.
FRIDAY: Asian/London Session: As is the norm now, we can ignore the early numbers, but the Canadian Employment Change number at 8:30 has been a player (or close to it) for the last few months, with numbers landing at 21, 18 and 50. I can pretend that 18 is actually a 20 as long as I have a shot at 50 again. And truthfully, there is that shot simply because I use the USDCAD as my chart to track price action, so any US based numbers designed to move the USD around will have an outsized impact on the CAD just as their Employment number drops. And that is just the case today, as you will see in a moment.
USA Session: CPI and all its variations drop at 8:30 a.m., and CPI has become sort of the leading High Holy Day of trading, surpassing even the NFP and Fed Rate Announcements. The last 3 numbers (from the EURUSD) were 25, 27 and 28, so a solid number to trade. And if you are thinking about the USDCAD, the last three from that chart were 24, 32 and 31. So a definite play here, maybe on both charts if you are quick enough. Then at 10:00 we get the UofM Preliminary Consumer Sentiment and Inflation Expectations numbers. The last three numbers were 20, 16 and 8, so perhaps the bloom has finally fallen off the UofM numbers. These had been solid 20+ pip performers for quite a while (the Prelim numbers, anyway). Maybe it has one last 25 pip move left in it, but don't get your hopes up too high on this one. Factory Orders drops at 10:00 as well, but that one has done absolutely nothing for price action for at least 2 decades I am aware of. The Federal Budget Balance drops at 2:00 p.m. (maybe...it has been known to fall off the calendar without notice). Regardless, no one trades it, especially at 2 on a Friday afternoon. So maybe quit after the morning session and get an early start on your weekend.
See you back here next week.
Jeff
