Happy New Year

Looking back on 2017 it’s safe to say that it was a year to remember on the markets with Brexit making headlines throughout the year following the triggering of Article 50, both the Bank of England and the FED raising interest rates, leadership votes in France and Germany, President Trump’s various activities, continual political uncertainty with a snap general election in the UK resulting with a hung parliament, and the year ending with Brexit talks finally making headway.

There has been incredible volatility on the currency markets over the past year, making things difficult for those who have been trying to get the best return on their currency exchanges and this year is set to be no different. With Brexit talks still centre stage we can expect the markets to see-saw making things a little tricky to predict. Various market analysts are making the predictions for the year ahead but as the past year has shown, surprises happen.

We kick off the new year with a quiet day on the markets. Today heavily revolves around Markit Manufacturing PMI and already this morning we have had releases for various countries in the Euro-zone and the Euro-zone as a whole, then it’s the UK’s turn at 09:30 this morning followed by Canada at 14:30 and the US at 14:45.

The Week Ahead

Wednesday

09:00 GER Unemployment change and Unemployment rate
09:30 GBP Construction PMI
15:00 USD ISM Prices Paid, ISM Manufacturing PMI & Construction Spending.
19:00 USD FOMC Minutes

Thursday

09:00 EUR Markit Services PMI
09:30 GBP Consumer Credit, Mortgage approvals & Markit Services PMI
13:15 USD APD Employment change
13:30 USD Initial & Continuing Jobless Claims
14:45 USD Markit Services PMI

Friday

Overnight AUD Trade Balance
10:00 EUR Consumer & Producer Price Index
13:30 USD Average Hourly Earnings, Labour force participation rate, Non-farm payrolls, Unemployment rate and Trade Balance.
13:30 CAD International Merchandise Trade, Unemployment Rate, Participation rate & Net Change in Employment
15:00 USD Non Manufacturing PMI & Factory Orders
15:00 CAD Ivey Purchasing Manufacturers Index

With a few main releases due this week and no doubt another very busy year ahead as well, be sure to stay in touch with us at Currency Index so that you can plan-out your currency requirement effectively and in plenty of time to get the very most from what we expect to be a relatively volatile market and of course to be kept informed of exactly what is occurring.