Hi Folks.
So the US Government shutdown is officially over, just in time for the Holiday Silly Season to get underway. We start off Silly Season with the US Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday (banks and markets are all closed) and only a partial workday on Friday. I used to joke that anyone who worked in the financial sector and had gained even a smidge of seniority would be gone from work on Friday, leaving junior brokers and interns to hold down the fort with strict instructions to NOT TOUCH ANYTHING while the senior employers enjoyed the extra day off. Turns out that isn't really a joke and most shops will be operating with skeleton staffs.
So don't expect much from the markets on Thursday or Friday unless UK traders decide to start shoving prices around while everyone else across the pond is stuffing their faces with turkey and pie.
As for the news (and the so-far failure to play much catch-up with all the missing numbers from the last 40+ days) we did have a couple of extra numbers sneak into the calendar mid week last week, but they were the kind of numbers we ignore as hard as we can, so I didn't bother with any updates. We do have a few late arrivals on calendar so far and there may be a few more added as we move forward. So if anything major shows up for Monday through Wednesday, after I've already mailed this out, I'll send a follow up. But if you see a new number arrive mid week and don't hear from me, assume it isn't worth talking about.
Now on with the forecast.
SUNDAY: Japan has a banking holiday today and the G20 continues meetings from last week. that's it. So in other words, nothing.
MONDAY: Asian/London Session: It looks like the A/L session is getting in the Silly Season Spirit early as well. 5 calendar entries for the entire session and 2 are Fed Speak. We start with the German ifo Business Climate number at 4:00 a.m. Beige Folder on the FF calendar, and yet completely ignorable by traders. Canada gets into the game at 8:30 a.m. with Corporate Profits q/q, and this one only posted one number above 20 pips in the last 9 months and that was when they also released Retail Sales at the same time AND the Core Number came out as a huge downside miss. So I think we can attribute the move to Sales and not Corporate Profits. Pass. Eurozone releases the Belgian NBB Business Climate number which will also be ignored by traders worldwide. Pass. Finally we get Fed Speak with Lagarde at 9:50 a.m. and our buddy Nagel from the German Buba at 12:45 p.m.
USA Session: Yet again the calendar lists the Federal Budget Balance as a Tentative, probably because in spite of the Shutdown ending we are still running with no Budget. So not much we can do with it.
TUESDAY: Asian/London Session: Another relatively slow session. German Final GDP drops at 2:00 a.m. but it's the latter of 2 GDP numbers and the other one usually is the one that moves things around. Watch if you want but don't expect anything to happen worth trading. Then at 6:00 a.m. the UK drops their CBI Realized Sales number, based on surveying 125 vendors in the UK to determine what sales are looking like within that small universe. It's a Zero Number, so anything above 0 is good and below 0 is bad. expectations are for -30, and the last time we saw a positive (above Zero) number was Sept 2024. So expect bad news and when it arrives don't expect the market to react. It's been too bad for too long. Then at 6:50 p.m. Japan releases their SPPI number, which is a steady 6-9 pip mover regardless of how the number comes out. Pass. Australia releases their CPI y/y number and this is a textbook example of why you should follow the US CPI number and ignore most of the others (UK is the exception): 2, 2, and 4 are the pip counts in the half hour after this one drops over the last three releases. I've seen bigger moves on Christmas Eve. Hard, hard pass. Finally at 8:00 p.m. New Zealand releases their own Interest Rate decision, which is expected to be a quarter point cut, taking their rate from 2.50% to 2.25%. The last three rate decisions generated 6, 6, and 6 pips in the 15 minutes after the announcement, so this is yet another NZ number you can safely PASS!
USA Session: We start off with a trip in our time machine to visit the PPI and Retail Sales numbers from 40 days ago. I would say you can expect to ignore these numbers, but yesterday we saw the 40 day old NFP from early October drops and some charts went ballistic for a while. So keep an eye on these as we did not get the CPI number last week as hinted at by the calendar, so this is going to be our first look at the inflation numbers, along with sales. Housing Price Index and the S&P Composite Housing Price Index drop at 9:00 and given we just had the old PPI number 30 minutes earlier, don't expect much from this one, as even in normal times traders ignore these housing numbers. Pending Home Sales at 10:00 along with the Richmond Manufacturing Index and Business Inventories. Still more numbers traders usually ignore. Pass. There is a "tentative" Conference Board Consumer Confidence number listed, but this is one no one trades, so Pass. And finally, we get that API Oil Bulletin at 4:30.
WEDNESDAY: Asian/London Session: Third night in a row they could have cancelled their number drops and no one would have noticed or cared. Japan leads us off at midnight with their BOJ Core CPI y/y, which only generates single digits in terms of pip counts post release, so Pass. Switzerland has the UBS economic Expectations number at 4:00 and it's a non-event as well, so pass. Euro's release an Financial Stability review, but it's a report, not a number, and then we have a pair of "tentatives" out of the EU and Great Britain. So pass on both. Australia and New Zealand both have evening numbers dropping but none of them generate even a blip on the charts. Pass on all.
USA Session: Lots of numbers and few we can do anything with. 8:30 brings us the Weekly Unemployment number along with the Durable Goods numbers. I looked into the Unemployment History of numbers and saw that they have posted all the delayed numbers over the last couple of days but without telling any of us by way of Calendar entries. That's not much help. But at least we are supposed to get the current number today, and combined with Durable goods, which has been a trainwreck lately in terms of landing in the same zip code as the estimates, we might actually see a little action today, assuming anyone shows up for work the day before Thanksgiving. After that, the only calendar entries with actual times are the Chicago PMI at 9:45 a.m. (pass), Crude Oil at 10:30, NatGas at 12:00, and the Fed's Beige Book at 2:00 p.m. We do have some other numbers listed as Tentative, including Preliminary GDP and GDP Price Index q/q, Core PCE Price Index (the Fed's alleged favorite tool), Personal Income, Personal Spending and the Conference Board's Leading Index numbers. Not much we can do with Tentatives, but be aware someone thought these numbers would appear today, and the GDP and Core PCE numbers can do some real damage. So keep your calendar open and be aware that the 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. times might contain a couple of trade grenades.
THURSDAY: Asian/London Session: Day Four of the "Good Numbers Held Hostage" watch. 12 numbers, and not a single one generates any price action and is even worth mentioning as a possibility. A good night to take off in solidarity with your turkey eating brothers and sisters in the USA.
USA Session: Thanksgiving holiday. All US banks and markets are closed. You can still see some activity on most charts as the after market trading in Futures picks up the slack, but you'll be missing a lot of volume until next week.
FRIDAY: Asian/London Session: Day Five and still no end in sight for the crappy numbers. And I'm not just blasting through this because I'm in a hurry to wrap it up and go to lunch (although I am getting hungry and want to go to lunch). I'm seeing numbers on the calendar today that I just don't see regularly, which means the fine folks over at FF are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something to post to end the week. French Final Private Payrolls? Guess how many times I've written about that one? If you guessed ZERO you're the big winner! I'm not telling you to not trade. I'm just saying no one is going out of their way to set you up with some decent numbers designed to create some price action/momentum. So move forward with your trading today (hell, this week!) at your own risk.
USA Session: The US banks and markets are back open but will close early today (traditionally at 1:00 p.m. eastern time) and we don't have a single entry on the calendar for the day. So think very seriously about taking today off as well and coming back fresh Monday.
Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americanos and anyone else who celebrates the day with us. See you back here next week (unless the tryptophan finally claims me as its next victim!)
Jeff
