Hi Folks.
By the time we reach Friday this week, we will be roughly half-way through August. And Fridays seem to be getting reached a hell of a lot faster than they used to as I get older. I'm not sure what the big hurry is, but the bright side is we are just a couple more weeks away from exiting Summer Doldrums for another year.
And honestly, Summer Trading hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be this year. It isn't great, mind you, but we are still seeing some setups worth the risk of punching a Buy or Sell button. But 3-4 more weeks and it becomes academic. So hang in there and we'll be back to normal before you know it.
Now on with the show.
SUNDAY: Normally I just blow off whatever economic swill is offered as a Sunday evening appetizer, but this week we only had a pair of Japanese reports both dropping together at 7:50 as they always do, so I took another look at the Yen chart to see if there was anything here worth watching. The last 3 months saw 6, 4, and 5 pips in the hour after release. Unless you are a certified masochist, move on. Nothing to see here. Pass.
MONDAY: Asian/London Session: For the entire 24 hour Monday session, we have 6 calendar entries, 5 during the A/L session, and one of those is a bank holiday (Japan). The remaining 4 are space wasters. Pass on the entire session
USA Session: And the only entry during the US session is that "tentative" Cleveland Fed Inflation Expectations number. "Tentative" still equals Automatic Pass, as we don't have a fixed time set for the release. But looking past the entry and into the details, this one drops at 9:45 a.m. my time religiously, so I went ahead and looked at the last 3 numbers. 4, 7, and 6. So it's a huge Pass for an entirely different reason (the report [and result thereof] sucks!).
TUESDAY: Asian/London Session: Conditions are not much better today/tonight. If you count all the Australian Cash Rate numbers as one entry (and I do), there are only 8 entries total, 3 in the A/L session, and the other two (Italian Trade Balance at 4:00 a.m. and Japanese M2 Money Stock y/y at 7:50) generate a total of no discernible pips after release. The Australian Cash Rate (interest rate decision) has created an absolute firestorm of activity over the last three months, if by firestorm you mean nothing at all: 6, 20, and 5 pips, and the 20 pip move happened the day the Aussies bumped their rate back up from 4.10% to 4.35 %. Today they are expected to stand pat on 4.35% so another 4-5 pip result is all that is expected. You have been warned.
USA Session: Horrid list of numbers today, starting with a 6 a.m. drop of the NFIB Small Business Index number when we're all still in bed. Pass. Then we get not one but TWO ADP Weekly Unemployment Change numbers (no number last week so they are including it today). I suspect that is because last week was NFP week and ADP releases their Monthly number the Wednesday prior, and they don't want traders to get confused as to which number they should be ignoring (spoiler alert: ignore both numbers like every other trader on the planet does). After that we get Existing Home Sales at 10:00 (nobody cares) and that ADP OIL report at 4:30 (again, no one cares and there is nothing there to trade at 4:30 p.m. anyway).
WEDNESDAY: Asian/London Session: Things pick up a bit from here on out. We have 4 numbers in the early session, but they are all trash. Then we get to the evening session and another 4 numbers, which are also so easy to ignore given their history of doing nothing for price action. But the fine folks over at FF have deemed the NZD Inflation Expectations q/q number at 11:00 p.m. my time to be a Beige Folder report, one step more important than all that Yellow Folder swill they keep feeding us day in and day out. Normally you can follow a number for a while and after a time realize it just isn't Red Folder (ISM Services from last week, for example) or even Beige Folder (most of your Beige Folder numbers qualify here) quality, so a downgrade to Yellow is understandable. But bumping something from Yellow to Beige should be a performance award, like consistently posting 20+ pips after the drop. Here, the last 3 numbers were 7, 7, and 9 pips. Maybe it's just me, but those doesn't strike me as Beige Folder-worthy performances. So don't be surprised if this wasn't some fat-fingering of the keyboard (something I do with regularity) and next quarter we are back to Yellow Folder status on this one.
USA Session: And our reward for all that Swill consumption comes today at 8:30 with the CPI number along with all the other related CPI numbers. In May we saw a very non-CPI result of 15 pips, but June and July roared back with 23 and 52 pips respectively (I feel pretty safe postulating that 52 was a result of the number coming in at 0.00% when the expectation was 0.2%). Not sure we'll see straight goose eggs again this month, but we will likely see 20+ pip moves easily enough. The rest of the calendar is junk (Crude Oil at 10:30 for the Oil traders...the rest is 100% ignorable).
THURSDAY: Asian/London Session: For a long while I've looked forward to a handful of GBP numbers: CPI, GDP, Claimant Count, their Interest Rate decision. These numbers reliably moved 20+ pips every month. But lately it seems traders have turned their backs on the GBP Big 4 and today's GDP number is a textbook example. The last three numbers (most recent first) are 14, 15, and 24. This pattern of decline is showing up on the other numbers as well. So where I once would have made the GDP an automatic trade, I just can't do that any longer, at least until we see signs of life returning to the charts. The other 2:00 a.m. numbers are essentially meaningless as they also come out with GDP every month, so their impact is known to be minor to non-existent. After the GBP GDP, the value of the numbers takes a screaming nosedive to irrelevancy, so today (tonight), in spite of a rather robust looking calendar, it's all about the GDP.
USA Session: Much like the A/L session before us, we have a rather extensive list of economic numbers dropping today, and none of them are worth a mention aside from the PPI at 8:30 a.m. Traditionally, the PPI drops a day after the CPI (as it is doing here today) and since the CPI sucks all the oxygen out of the room, the PPI is left struggling to post any sort of tradeable result, and the last 3 numbers of 17, 24, and 13 tend to back that up. I spent some time trying to decipher why the PPI suddenly woke up in June with that 24 pip tip-to-tip move, and came up empty. The CPI dropped the day before, of the two numbers (Core and Overall) one came out higher than expected and the other lower, so that's a mixed message at best. But the 24 was quite a bit higher than the normal result, so if we drop back into a 15 pip range after release today, don't be surprised. Trade it if you want, just keep your expectations in check.
FRIDAY: Asian/London Session: It's all morning numbers today (it's Friday, after all) and it's all junk. French and German local numbers won't move the EURUSD, and the 5:00 a.m. basket of EU cumulative numbers have zero history for moving the E/U more than 4-5 pips. The Canadian numbers suffer from the same malady: muted price action. So the entire session is a waste. If you're not trading the US session, this is your permission slip for another 3 day weekend.
USA Session: Retails Sales m/m (Core and Overall) at 8:30. Three months ago this one was a Red Folder report but it went through very long period of being ignored by traders so FF dropped them to Beige Folder status a couple of months back. The last three months results of 9, 10, and 18 shows RS is trying to fight it's way back into the Red Folder Upper Tier. 18 won't get them there, but a few months of 25+ will probably do the trick. But for now, I'm expecting to see 8's and 9's for a few more months at a minimum. Then at 10 we get the Preliminary UofM Inflation Expectations and Consumer Confidence numbers. Late last year into the first few months of 2026, this set of numbers was posting respectable 20-25 pip results, for reasons that escape me simply because this entire package of data is just plain ignorant. The researchers survey a handful of people in Michigan and then extrapolate those numbers onto the National economy. Seems kind of sketchy to me. But traders apparently feel likewise, as the last three results of 11, 11, and 9 would attest. So much like the A/L session folks, this is yet another in a long line of Fridays that just seem like a good day to not trade. So you also have my permission to shut 'er down on Thursday and head for the beach and another 3 day weekend.
See you back here next week.
Jeff
