From Forex Factory
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Consumer Climate: Two-Year High at a Low Level
The recovery in consumer sentiment in Germany continued in April. Income expectations grew noticeably, economic expectations and the willingness to buy are increasing moderately. The consumer climate thus improved for the third time in a row. In the forecast for May, the indicator increases to
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Retail sales fall sharply in April - CBI Distributive Trades Survey
Retail sales fell sharply in the year to April, according to the latest monthly CBI Distributive Trades Survey. This follows no change in sales over March. While the earlier timing of Easter this year likely played a role in April’s decline, the fall in retail sales was nonetheless greater than
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Minutes of the Monetary Policy Meeting on March 18 and 19, 2024
The Bank had been conducting market operations, including purchases of Japanese government bonds (JGBs), in accordance with the guideline for market operations and the guideline for conduct of yield curve control, both of which were decided at the previous meeting on January 22 and 23, 2024.7 With these market operations, long-term interest rates had been at levels consistent with the Bank's
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Powell: A rise in unemployment would have to be meaningful for us to react
FED'S POWELL: A RISE IN UNEMPLOYMENT WOULD HAVE TO BE MEANINGFUL FOR US TO REACT. Powell: "A couple tenths" of an increase in the unemployment rate doesn't count as an "unexpected weakening" in the labor market that would justify cuts.
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Powell: As inflation has come down to below 3%, the Fed's employment goal comes back into focus
FED'S POWELL: AS INFLATION HAS COME DOWN TO BELOW 3%, THE FED'S EMPLOYMENT GOAL COMES BACK INTO FOCUS. FED'S POWELL: I DON'T KNOW IF INFLATION WILL FALL ENOUGH, OR WON'T FALL ENOUGH, TO MERIT RATE CUTS. POWELL: DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND WHERE TALK OF STAGFLATION SCENARIO IS COMING FROM GIVEN U.S. DATA FED'S POWELL: WE SAW A YEAR OF VERY HIGH PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN 2023. FED'S POWELL: WE COULD HAVE A
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Softer US activity numbers will do little to temper the Fed’s hawkishness
Ahead of today’s Federal Reserve FOMC meeting we have had some fairly subdued US activity numbers. The ISM manufacturing index dropped back into contraction territory in April at 49.2 from 50.3 (consensus 50.0). Production held just above the break-even 50 level at 51.3, but new orders are
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Japan Jobless Rate Holds Steady At 2.6%
The unemployment rate in Japan was a seasonally adjusted 2.6 percent in March, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said on Tuesday. That was unchanged from the February reading, although it missed forecasts for 2.5 percent. The jobs-to-applicant ratio was 1.28, which exceeded
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AUD/USD suffers bearish blow from softer China PMIs, ugly Australian Retail Sales miss
The growth engine of the Chinese economy unexpectedly decelerated last month while Australian retail sales are growing at the weakest pace on record outside one-off economic shocks, putting AUD/USD under renewed pressure on Tuesday. China PMIs soften but not enough to spur stimulus talk: China’s
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Business confidence falls in April
In the manufacturing industry, the loss of confidence after two months of gains was mainly due to a significantly less encouraging assessment of stock levels and a sharp downward revision of demand expectations. On top of this, employment expectations were also downgraded, but to a much lesser
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Preview of Q1 NZ labour market statistics
Next Wednesday’s reports are likely to show a further softening in labour market conditions over the first quarter of this year. We expect the unemployment rate to rise from 4.0% to 4.2% – that’s still a low level compared to history, but it’s a substantial lift from the record low of 3.2% that was
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German economy returns to growth in April
The German private sector returned to growth at the start of the second quarter, the latest HCOB ‘flash’ PMI® survey compiled by S&P Global showed, driven by a solid rise in services business activity. Although manufacturing remained in contraction, the rate of decline in factory production eased
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RBA: Interest rate expectations have changed - we explain why
When analysing the outlook for equities, it can be useful to consider the assumptions financial markets appear to be pricing in. Historically we have found that opportunities and risks are most present when the market is pricing in bearish or bullish outcomes respectively that probabilistically are