Hi Folks.
Yet another week of mostly trash news, but there is at least one nugget out there for those of you hardy enough to dig it up.
So on with the show.
SUNDAY: In a rare carryover from last week, today the IMF enters Day Seven of their meetings in Thailand. I've never seen IMF meetings last this long. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the discount booze and abundance of underage hookers. Hell, the only big announcement I'm expecting from these meetings is that they are moving their headquarters to Bangkok permanently. The rest of the Sunday calendar is the usual mess of low level numbers from New Zealand and Great Britain (where they will be dead asleep when the Rightmove Housing price Index drops at midnight:01, so that's an easy pass for all the right reasons) and one bit of Fed Speak out of Australia from some guy named Kent whose wife probably forbid him from going to Thailand for the last week. In other words, the entire Sunday session is a Pass as usual.
MONDAY: Asian/London Session: We go from the 12:30 Japanese Tertiary Industry Activity number (which rarely cracks 10 pips) to the 8:30 Canadian CPI in all its various iterations. The last three months of group CPI numbers generated 13, 9, and 16 pips. The 16 is a little encouraging for future numbers moving forward, but for now it's a Pass. There is also a Canadian Business Outlook Survey at 11:00, but I'm pretty sure that's just data and not a tradeable number. Pass here as well.
USA Session: For several non-consecutive weeks, there have been no numbers coming out of the USA on Monday. Today we have the National Home Builders Association Housing Market Index at 10:00 a.m. That's the long way of saying we still don't have any numbers coming out on Monday. Pass.
TUESDAY: Asian/London Session: The German PPI at 2:00 can and should be ignored, but also at 2:00 a.m. is the Great Britain Claimant Count Change (we call it the NFP on the 1st Friday of each month). For reasons I cannot explain, this was a red Folder number for a long while (years) but today shows up as a Yellow Folder (rock bottom). No. Just, no. It's worth more than that. Granted, the last 3 numbers were 12, 21, and 19, but the last two were 21 and 19, which is just enough that I'll give this one yet one more chance. It might not get quite to +20 pips, but it should get real close. I know I've mentioned the GBP numbers have been slowing dying compared to a year ago, but they're not dying that fast. Keep an eye on this one and it could end up being your best trade of the week (yes, the week is just that bad). After the newly minted yellow folder Brit NFP, it's a fast downhill slide to irrelevancy. So trade this one or don't bother trading either of these sessions at all, at least from a news standpoint.
USA Session: We start off like we do each Tuesday with that irrelevant ADP Weekly Unemployment Change number no one trades. Then it gets worse. Building Permits and Housing starts at 8:30 a.m. will be universally ignored by traders everywhere. Pending Home Sales at 10:00 a.m. will get the exact same cold shoulder. And we close at 4:30 with that API Oil Report, which is just a report and not a number, so end the day like we started: Pass.
WEDNESDAY: Asian/London Session: Another 2:00 a.m. GBP Red Folder number, only this time it's still a Red Folder Number: CPI, and you may recall me saying US and UK CPI are the only two worth trading. That still holds true. The last 3 numbers were 21, 17, and 21. Two out of three above my 20 pip line means we take a shot here as well. If these numbers get any worse then we'll back off for a while, but for today, we ride, er, trade. The numbers in the middle are worthless, and we close at 5:45 p.m. with the New Zealand CPI. Remember when I said the US and UK CPI numbers were the only two worth trading? (I hope so, because I said it literally like 4 sentences ago). The last 3 pip counts for this q/q number were 16, 2, and 3. An easy Pass to close this session.
USA Session: Crude Oil at 10:30 a.m. Yep. That's it for the day.
THURSDAY: Asian/London Session: Just a short list of dumpster fire fuel. The only entry that looks even remotely interesting is the Japanese number that closes us out at 7:30 p.m. (National Core CPI y/y...and yes, I'm ignoring the 8:30 p.m. Flash Manufacturing PMI number). But with the last 3 months posting 2, 6, and 16 (and the 16 came out with other numbers) it's just not that interesting. So once again, it's the Brit number at 2:00 a.m. or nothing at all.
USA Session: Weekly Unemployment at 8:30 should be spelled Weakly Unemployment, it's been that bad in terms of price action. Pass. The 10:00 a.m. Conference Board Consumer Confidence number has long been a whipping boy in terms of "why is this still on the calendar each month?" I do not know why. In a vast array of worthless and useless numbers, it stands atop the trash heap as the most useless and most worthless of them all. Pass. We close with NatGas at 10:30 a.m.
FRIDAY: Asian/London Session: At 2:00 a.m. we get a Beige Folder GBP Retail Sales number, and I have a serious question for the folks over at FF: Do you just randomly assign folder colors to numbers these days? Because you Yellow Foldered the GBP Claimant Count number, which was one of the few still hanging on and producing +20 pip results more often than not, and here, we get Retail Sales, which has been the poster boy for the decline of the GBP numbers over the last 9-10 months, as a Beige Folder entry. Randomizing is the only thing I can think of unless you hired some color blind relative to handle the setup for the week. Anyway, this is a GBP report that has struggled to stay in the double digit pip counts, with the last 3 results landing at 18, 12, and 14 pips. The numbers are headed in the wrong direction. This one I have no trouble advising you to stay away from until further notice. Pass. Then we get the cavalcade of Flash Service and Manufacturing numbers, which combined and spread across 3+ hours, we're lucky to see a grand total of 20 pips in movement on the EUR pairs, which is where most of the figurative damage is done by these numbers. Pass on them all. Since this is a Friday, the session closes with Canadian Retail Sales, which performs even worse than the GBP version does, posting 10, 13, and 8 pips over the last 3 moths. Pass, and same goes for the Belgian Business Climate number at 9:00 a.m.
USA Session: The 9:45 a.m. Flash Service and Manufacturing numbers are the ones ignored by traders in favor if the ISM Manufacturing and Service PMI numbers, and those are not on the calendar today anyway. And the 10:00 a.m. Revised UofM Consumer Sentiment and Inflation Expectations numbers just don't get traders moving like they did a year ago. So Pass here as well.
For those of you in the CHF, EUR and GBP time zones, your clocks fall back an hour this weekend, so be aware the timing with US numbers will be off until after Nov. 1st, when the US (and I think Canada) both roll back an hour and bring balance back to the force.
So that's it for another week. See you back here next Sunday for another stab at finding at least one number that makes it worth dragging ourselves out of bed to trade. See you then.
Jeff
