MARKET ANALYSIS

Good morning traders.
Given the Christian Easter holidays, markets moved in tight ranges on Friday. Global stock and bond markets remained closed leading to a thin volatility through out the board.

USD

On Friday, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released the NFP report for March. The reading came close to market expectations at 236K.This week the US CPI will be released on Wednesday followed by March’s Retail Sales and the Michigan Consumer Sentiment for April. On a fundamental level, FOMC will publish the March minutes giving an indicator on how deep the FED’s hawkishness is.

JPY

In the land of the rising sun, we won’t be having any high impact economic news releases this week. Academic Kazuo Ueda began his five-year term as governor of the Bank of Japan on Sunday replacing Haruhiko Kuroda. Governor Ueda shows willingness to move away from the central bank’s bond yield control policy indicating that the years of ultra-loose monetary settings could be gradually phased out thus potentially supporting the JPY.

GBP

UK’s economy appears to be more financially stable allowing for the sterling to counteract the dollar heavyweight while remaining stable against EUR. On a macroeconomic level, UK will release the GDP rate on Thursday while BOE Gov Bailey will speak at the International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings in Washington DC on Wednesday.

CAD

Loonie remained almost unchanged against the Dollar last week. Data released by Statistics Canada on Thursday showed that unemployment remained unchanged at 5% in March. BOC’s interest rate will be released on Wednesday with market consensus indicating a hold at 4.50%.

EUR

The common currency started the week on a slow pace with most major European markets closed due to the Easter Monday holiday. This week Eurozone will release its Industrial Production figure for February on Thursday giving a clearer picture on the Eurozone economy.

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