Currency news for the week ahead

Last week was a turbulent one for the pound with little data out and some fairly large sentiment based swings across the board seeing sterling make some strong gains against some of the major currencies, including the antipodean Aussie and Kiwi dollars and the South African rand all moving a few percent over last week. The week ended with sterling flat against the US dollar and down significantly against the euro giving some of the lowest trading levels seen in some weeks. It was an odd week though as we had very little key data out at all from any of the major economies whereas the week ahead is very, very different.

The following list shows the main ecostats of key importance:

• Monday – US industrial production, NAHB housing market index.
• Tuesday – RBA minutes & assistant governor Debelle speech. Bank of England bank stress test results, US, German & EU Markit manufacturing PMI, UK inflation figures, ZEW survey for economic sentiment, Bank of England governor Mark Carney speech and financial stability report
• Wednesday – Swiss quarterly bulletin, BoE minutes, UK unemployment rate and average earnings, EU inflation figures, US inflation figures, Feds interest rate decision, monetary policy statement and press conference, New Zealand GDP
• Thursday – Australian RBA bulletin, Swiss trade balance and import/export figures, German IFO, UK retail sales, US Markit service PMI
• Friday – UK Gfk consumer confidence survey, German Gfk consumer confidence survey, UK public sector net borrowing, UK CBI distributive trades survey, Bank of Canada inflation report, Canadian retail sales

As you can see from the above, we have a great deal of key releases to contend with which all have the capacity to move the markets significantly depending on the results. If you have a currency transfer to make, make sure to stay in touch with the team at Currency Index to avoid getting caught out.