An Uneventful last week of 2015
Even if the year-end holiday season restricted market moves during last week, sluggish economic details pushed US Dollar Index (I.USDX) towards a negative weekly closing. The EUR and JPY remained mostly firm against majority of its counterparts and the GBP maintained its downturn with slower GDP growth indicating later than expected interest rate hike by the BoE. Moving on, the antipodeans, namely AUD, NZD and CAD, all stayed positive as commodity prices improved, lead by the Crude which gained heavily due to depleting U.S. inventories and a sustained cut in the number of US drilling rigs.
Current week, which will close the year 2015, can be termed as "an uneventful one" due to the lack of economic details scheduled for publish. However, US CB Consumer Confidence, Pending Home Sales and Chicago PMI might become helpful in forecasting near-term USD moves while official readings of Chinese Manufacturing & Non-Manufacturing PMI can help providing some intermediate moves to the global financial markets.
US Economics To Dominate This Week's Trading
Dearth of data-points from the rest of the global economics would drive market players' attention on the scheduled US economic details, namely CB Consumer Confidence, Pending Home Sales and Chicago PMI, to ascertain the Fed's ability to extend its monetary policy tightening path.
Amongst the scheduled US readings, monthly CB Consumer Confidence, up for Tuesday release, becomes more important as improvement in consumer sentiment, to an expected 93.9 from 2015 lows of 90.4, may support rest of the US economics and could help the central bank move forward in their interest rate hikes during 2016. Moving on, the Pending Home Sales, scheduled for release on Wednesday, is likely to register the highest growth in seven months, to +0.6% against +0.2% prior, while the Chicago PMI, to be released on Thursday, is expected to favor manufacturing expansion with 50.4 mark versus prior contraction of 48.7. Moreover, consensus relating to weekly Jobless Claims, out on Thursday, favors a three week high print of 274K against 267K registered in the previous week.
Surprise downbeat prints from the scheduled US numbers, coupled with the year-end profit booking, could magnify recent greenback declines and raise the bars for the Federal Reserve's 2016 rate hike series; however, absence of global economic statistics may continue limiting big moves.
Chinese PMIs Manage End Of The Week
In addition to the US details, official PMI numbers concerning the Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing sectors of the world's largest industrial player, China, may manage to provide market moves during following trading sessions.
The aforementioned chart signals that the Chinese manufacturing sector has been continuously contracting during last four months; however, forecasts concerning the Manufacturing PMI for the December month, scheduled for Friday release, mentions a point closer print to the 50.0 mark, favoring expansion, with 49.9 against 49.6 prior while the Non-Manufacturing PMI is likely maintaining its up-move in above 50.00 number. Being the world's largest Industrial economy and the largest commodity consumer, another downbeat print by the Manufacturing PMI could negatively affect recent improvement in commodity prices and the commodity currencies, namely, AUD, CAD and NZD.
Year-end holidays, coupled with fewer economics, could continue limiting trading volumes during the uneventful last week of 2015; however, high degree of deviation from the scheduled data points might still trigger some volatile moves in the Forex market.
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