mask Yellen to the Rescue?

23/ 03/ 2017

Yellen to the Rescue?

Daily Outlook - 23rd Mar 2017

Yesterday Market

  • USD Housing Price Index

Yesterday Explained

Pound and Euro had a roller-coaster type of a day as both had to shed some of its positive gains during the early US session. Before US Housing Price Index, Dollar gained positive momentum but negative figures meant that it had to give away its gains.

Despite a terror attack in front of House of Parliament yesterday, Pound managed to hold on to its gains from Tuesdays positive momentum largely thanks to positive inflation data. The Terror attack however prevented Scottish parliament on having the scheduled debate on Scottish referendum.

Theresa May announced that she would not allow another independence vote until Brexit has been negotiated and scots can see how it has worked out. While in France, latest polls show that Emmanuel Macron leads by 65% to Le Pen’s 35%.

Today’s Market

  • EUR Gfk Consumer Confidence Survey & Consumer Confidence
  • GBP Retail Sales
  • USD Fed’s Yellen Speech, Initial Jobless Claims, New Homes Sales, FOMC Member Kashkari Speech

Today’s Focus

The most important day of the week as Investors will be focusing on what Yellen has to say about the future economic projections and add more clarity into last week’s FOMC statement. Early morning Germany will release Gfk Consumer Confidence survey which is a leading index that measures the level of consumer confidence in economic activity. Mid-day UK will release several reports on Retail sales.

Next up will be the all-important speech from Fed President Janet Yellen. Investors will be keeping their fingers on Buy and Sell buttons and make decisions depending on how her tone sets out to be. Next up will be Initial Jobless Claims which is a measure of the number of people filing first-time claims for state unemployment insurance. This will be followed by New Homes Sales which is an important measure of housing market conditions in US.

Last week Kashkari show dissent on Fed Rate Hike as he thinks that there is no need for a rate hike at this point. Hence markets will keep a close ear to what Kashkari has to say after Yellen’s speech.