Hi Folks.
Here is this week's forecast in this, in our new post-Interest Rate Drop world.
SUNDAY: A couple of Chinese reports and nothing else. Enjoy the night off.
MONDAY: Asian/London Session: Continue enjoying the night off because our first calendar entry is from Canada at 8:30 a.m., a pair of Produce Price Index numbers (Industrial and Raw materials) which together have failed to crack 20 pips over the last 3 months. So a safe Pass. At 9:00 a.m.--British Fed Speak. Pass. At 10:00 we get the European Consumer Confidence number, which, without even looking at the charts I can guess has no impact on prices. Ok, I looked. I was right. No Impact. Pass. At 2:00 p.m. we get more BritFedSpeak, only this time from Bailey, who is to his Fed what Powell is to ours. Red Folder and untradeable, but still capable of destroying otherwise perfectly good trades by saying something unexpected. At 7:00 p.m. we get the Flash Manufacturing and Services numbers out of Australia. These have a long history of not moving price around on the AUD pairs, so Pass. And as an FYI, Today is a Japanese Bank Holiday.
USA Session: Zip. Zilch. Nada. See you back here tomorrow. (Okay, I wrote that Thursday night, and today...Friday...FF added 5 different Fed Speaks at 9:45 a.m., 10:00 a.m., and 12 noon (3 of them at once). Ignore.)
TUESDAY: Asian/London Session: No surprise based on the Australian entry last night, tonight we get the Flash numbers from across Europe. As usual, watch for a trend and don't expect any individual number to move their respective currency pairs around any. The times/locations are France 3:15 a.m.; Germany 3:30 a.m.; Eurozone 4:00 a.m.; Great Britain 4:30 a.m.; normally we would expect Canada to pop up around 8:30 but they do not appear anywhere on the calendar this week. Just sloppiness from FF, I would guess. The rest of the sessions numbers are irrelevant, including the Australian CPI at 9:30 p.m., which typically posts a 6-8 pip response to their own CPI in the 30 minutes after release.
USA Session: Hey look! We actually have a couple of numbers today! At 8:30 a.m. we get the Current Account number, which measures who is buying more of our debt, us or them. When it's us, as it has been for a while, this is bad news for the currency (aka The Dollar). So this should be a big deal, but it typically passes with no notice each time it appears on the wire. But it also consistently posts sub-20 pip moves, so Pass. At 9:45 a.m. the calendar has completely done away with the "no one cares" version of these numbers and are giving us the Flash Manufacturing and Services PMI numbers instead (normally a 10:00 a.m. post). Appearing together, which usually does not happen, generally gives us some decent price action, so pay attention to this one. 10:00 a.m. brings us the Richmond Manufacturing Index (again, no one cares) and finally at 4:30 p.m. we get the API Weekly Oil Bulletin, after all the oil traders have gone home for the day. So no worries about that one either. LATE ENTRY: Powell is speaking at some rubber chicken luncheon at noon. Same rules apply here as with Bailey from the BOE. We can't trade it but if he slips and says something unexpected, then all hell could break loose. So be aware he's out there around lunchtime.
WEDNESDAY: Asian/London Session: Another short session (only 7 entries from beginning to end): We start with the Japanese BOJ Core CPI y/y number. This one sometimes flirts with a 20 pip move, although usually it ends up stalling in the mid to late teens, so if you trade it and it hits +16 then seems to stop dead, take the money and run. 4:00 a.m. brings the Swissy UBS Economic Expectations number, along with the German ifo Business Climate numbers. Neither posts more than a 10 pip move aside from once in a Blue Moon. Pass on both. The old Belgian NBB Business Climate number drops at 9:00 a.m. and if history has any say, no one will notice and those that do won't care. More BritFedSpeak at 12:30 p.m. At 7:50 Japan releases the minutes from their last Monetary Policy Meeting (a report, not a number) and their Service Producer Price Index y/y (SPPI). 3 months ago we saw a 25 pip move after the SPPI release, but the last two have been sub-10 pips. Not a fan of numbers that don't crack 20 on a regular basis, but this week is so miserable in terms of finding numbers designed to move price around, this might be one of the odd days that hands you an extra 10-15 pips as a gift from all the other frustrated traders looking for anything to hang their hat on. So it's a maybe. Do you feel lucky?
USA Session: New Home Sales at 10:00 a.m. (no one cares) and Crude Oil at 10:30 a.m. (only Oil traders care). I don't know why this week's calendar is so light, but it is what it is. EDIT: One more instance of FedSpeak is a late addition, at 4:10 p.m. when he can do the least amount of harm.
THURSDAY: Asian/London Session: we start with yet another in a very long line of Consumer Climate numbers, this one the German GfK, at 2:00 a.m. Like pretty much all of these Consumer measurement tools, this one fails to inspire traders on a regular basis, specifically by posting sub-10 pip moves each month. Pass. Then at 3:30 a.m. the Swiss announce their Interest rate Decision, said rate currently at 0.00% (and no, I did not forget to fill in an actual number...it's 0.00%) and expected to remain there after this meeting. 3 sessions ago, on Dec 12, 2024, the rate was at 1.00%, expected to drop to .75% and the cut was actually a half-point, dropping the rate to .50%. We saw 30+ pips in the next 30 minutes. On Mar. 20, 2025, the rate was at .50%, the cut was as expected to .25% and we saw about 35 pips in the next half hour. On June 28, 2025, the rate was .25%, the cut came in as expected down to 0.00%, and we saw just shy of 30 pips (28 or so). Now, the rate is at 0.00% and is expected to remain at 0.00%. If the rate remains the same, will we see another 25-30 pip move? I'm guessing no, but keep an eye out anyway because cuts to negative territory (-.25%) are not unheard of (See: JAPAN). So maybe. They follow at 4:00 a.m. with the usual Press Conference, and the Euros release their M3 Money Supply y/y and Private Loans y/y, which have a long and storied history of doing absolutely nothing to move prices around, so Pass. We end the morning numbers with the GBP CBI Realized Sales number, which is a hard pass, and we close the day at 7:30 p.m. with the Japanese Tokyo Core CPI y/y number, which only measures inflation in the Tokyo region. Given the extremely limited scope of the number, it's no surprise traders ignore it and it rarely generates more than 10 pips in the 30 minutes after release. Pass.
USA Session: A lot of numbers this session (15) but six are Fed Speak (8:20 a.m., 9:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 11:00 p.m., 1:40 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.) so no trades but be aware any one of these clowns can destroy an otherwise perfect good trade with a moronic remark, and 7 others all land at 8:30 a.m. (Final GDP q/q, Weekly Unemployment Claims; Durable Goods (Core and Overall), Final GDP Price Index (a lesser inflation measurement tool), Goods Trade Balance, and Preliminary Wholesale Inventories). Amazingly, none of these numbers are "money in the bank" numbers designed to shoot the charts into the stratosphere. But the sheer number, along with the fact that 5 of the 7 flirt with being at least somewhat important, sometimes, means we will likely see some real movement at 8:30 today. Which number or numbers will be behind the move? Who knows. Just be ready. And after 8:30 things fall off a cliff. Existing Home Sales at 10:00 a.m. is a Pass carved in stone, and NatGas at 10:30 is only of interest to NatGas traders. So it's 8:30 or Bust today.
FRIDAY: Asian/London Session: There is an Italian 10y Bond Auction listed as Tentative, so an untradeable event becomes just that more untradeable. And at 8:30 a.m. Canada releases their GDP m/m number. A Red Folder entry from FF, the CAD GDP in the last three months has generated 12, 15 and 28 pips. That last one came out at the same time as the US Core PCE Price Index, the Fed's alleged favorite Inflation Measurement Tool, and this just 2-1/2 weeks before this last Fed meeting where our Interest Rate was cut by a quarter point. So my guess is the USDCAD moved 28 points due to the PCE, not the -.1% GDP number (which was the exact same number posted the previous two times when the USDCAD moved 12 and 15 pips). I'm not saying Don't trade it. I'm saying don't expect much (although we have the PCE on tap today as well at 8:30 a.m. (see below) so who really knows. This one is your call to make.
USA Session: As mentioned above, today at 8:30 a.m. we get the Core PCE Price Index m/m, along with its normal companions Personal Income and Personal Spending. The pip totals from the previous 3 releases were 33, 16 and 13 pips, heading the wrong way (getting smaller each month). Part of that is due to Powell's hard-headedness in terms of not cutting rates (the rate cute influencing numbers lose their influence when the head of the Fed effectively says he doesn't care what the numbers are, he's not recommending a cut) and the last two numbers came in on target at .3%. If the number is off by a tick today, we could see some decent price moves as a result. The other two numbers coming out at 8:30 are meaningless. At 10:00 we get the Revised UofM Consumer Sentiment and Inflation Expectation numbers. The Prelim numbers have been causing a small stir on their release, and lately the Revised numbers have managed to generate 25-30 pips in movement over two of the last three numbers. I mentioned this earlier and I will mention it again: this has been a dreadful week for US session numbers, so this being Friday and the UofM data being the last tradeable numbers of the week, this is another chance for traders to make this into more than it is really worth. And it doesn't matter if we all think the UofM project is a dumpster fire. It's what all the other traders think. And if they think it's worth trading, then it is. So keep an eye on this one to close the week. And ignore the Fed Speak at 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
See you back here next week.
Jeff
