Hi Folks.
Here is this week's forecast.
SUNDAY: The calendar notes that the BRICS Summit is ongoing all day today and tomorrow. If you are not familiar with BRICS, it's the coalition of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South America, formed with the intent of dethroning the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency. It was formed in 2009 (a year after California voters passed the initiative to build a High Speed Rail Line) and much like California (which has spent many billions of dollars in the years since and not laid a single foot of track) BRICS has met continuously in the intervening 16 years and so far accomplished pretty much nothing by way of achieving their goals. So whenever you see BRICS show up on the calendar, feel free to walk past without looking. Nothing to see here at this point. There are also insignificant Japanese and Australian numbers (one each) dropping tonight, but they too can be safely ignored.
MONDAY: Asian/London Session: A lot of Yellow folders, both morning and evening, that amount to squat in terms of numbers likely to move price around. This looks like a very slow night is on tap for traders.
USA Session: Even worse, we don't have ANY folders of any color on calendar for today. A complete blank. It must be some secret post-July 4th holiday I've never heard of in my almost 64 years.
TUESDAY: Asian/London Session: The session is bookended with a pair of Interest Rate Decisions. 12:30 a.m. brings us the Australian version, a red folder report that has generated a massive 5-6 pips of movement post number release (and yes, that is five to six pips, in case you thought I missed adding a zero to the number...I didn't). Pass. The rest of the session is just filler numbers until we get to the other bookend at 10:00 p.m., the New Zealand Rate announcement, which likewise is responsible for posting anywhere from 6 to 16 pips after the release. A little better than Australia in terms of pip count, but not good enough to justify hitting the trade buttons.
USA Session: If you had any doubt that summer trading is here, look no further than today's entries. The NFIB Small Business Index number drops at 6 a.m. (and the rule that any number that drops while the focus of the report is still in bed can be safely ignored is most definitely in play here); Consumer Credit at 3 p.m. (no one trades this that I am aware of) and that Oil Bulletin at 4:30 after it is too late to do much with it. True bottom of the barrel numbers and likely the second session in a row where not a lot will happen.
WEDNESDAY: Asian/London Session: More low end Yellow folder trash. At 5:30 a.m. GB releases a Financial Stability Report, which is a report and not a number, but one which could cause a bit of a stir shortly thereafter, depending on the contents. We can't trade it but add it to the list of items we need to be aware of if trading after the London Open. Nagel from the German Buba speaks at 8:15 a.m. (Deutschland Fed Sprache) and nothing else worth mentioning until the Japanese PPI y/y number drops at 7:50 p.m. Last month's number was a snooze (6 pips? 7?) but the previous two months hit 25-30 pips. So probably you should keep an eye on the USDJPY right before 8 p.m., just in case.
USA Session: Oh Boy! The Final Wholesale Inventories drops at 10:00 a.m., said no one, ever. Not real sure why they keep including this one. It must be a contractual obligation of some sort. Crude Oil at 10:30, 10 year Bond Auction at 1:01 (of great interest, I am sure, to bond traders, but no one else) and finally, at 2:00 p.m., the Minutes of the last Fed Meeting hit the wires. A report, not a number, so not really tradeable for us, but again, as noted earlier, depending on contents it could generate some price action soon after release.
THURSDAY: Asian/London Session: The entirety of the session summed up in 3 reports: 4:00 a.m., Italian Industrial Production m/m (no one cares); 11:00 a.m. MPC Member Breeden Speaks (British Fed Speak--untradeable); and at 6:30 p.m. the New Zealand BusinessNZ Manufacturing Index number drops. Normally I would ignore all three of these events but they are the only entries in the entire 24 hours of the Thursday calendar for the Asian/London Session. Looks like a slow night is at hand.
USA Session: Weekly Unemployment is about all we have to really look at today. It's been hovering around the 250k mark for a few weeks, but last week's number surprised to the downside at 233k, which had been the previous high water mark for this number until the recent bump up. Anomaly? Trend Reversal? Tune in same bat time, same bat channel to figure it out. Things get sparse fast after Unemployment. NatGas at 10:30 and the 30 year Bond Auction at 1:01 p.m. The rest of the calendar is Fed Speak at 9:00 a.m., 1:15 and 2:30 p.m.
FRIDAY: Asian/London Session: British GDP at 2:00 a.m. and a bunch of related reports makes up most of the calendar. This one is behind a bunch of 30-40 pip moves so it needs to be at the top of your list for today (and even this week, given the paucity of tradeable numbers). The only other number worth mentioning is the CAD NFP (they don't call it that but that's what it is) and it too has been behind some pretty decent moves in the USDCAD over the last couple of years, so CAD traders, don't miss this one.
USA Session: Federal Budget Balance at 2:00 p.m. Also known as "Why bother?" It's late Friday afternoon. Hopefully you aren't still around trying to find one last trade before the weekend, because if you are, this number isn't likely to be of much help.
See you back here next week.
Jeff
