Hawkish Or Dovish? Fed Chair Janet Yellen Speech In Focus

Image via International Monetary Fund / Flickr

Today’s Economic events

Japan Household Spending y/y 1.20% vs. -1.80%

Japan Unemployment Rate 3.30% v. 3.20%

Japan retail sales y/y 0.50% vs. 1.60%

Eurozone M3 money supply y/y 5.0% vs. 5.0%

Eurozone private loans y/y 1.60% vs. 1.40%

BoE releases FPC statement

Canada RMPI m/m -2.60% vs. -0.80%

Canada IPPI m/m -1.10% vs. -0.20%

Coming Up

S&P/CS HPI

CB Consumer Confidence

Fed Chair Janet Yellen speech

New Zealand building consents

The US dollar continued to slip into early Asian trading today following yesterday’s PCE data which was soft. The Dollar eased back despite late comments from Fed’s Williams, who kept up the hawkish narrative that the US economy was on the right track. Equity markets were also under pressure with the Nikkei closing -0.18% and the Shanghai Composite down -1.26% for the day. In Japan, unemployment data released today showed a 3.30% increase up from January’s 3.20% unemployment rate. Retail sales data remained soft but showed some upward traction. Retail sales increased for the first time in February in the past four months, rising 0.50% on a year over year basis, reversing the contraction of -0.20% in January. However, retail sales failed to beat market forecasts of 1.60%. Household spending data was also released showing a 1.20% in February, marking a first in six months. USD/JPY managed to seek out some gains in the Asian session, rising to session highs of 113.795 before falling back.

The commodity risk currencies were mixed with AUD/USD down -0.26% as prices posted a strong decline since the start. AUD/USD opened higher to test session highs above 0.7562 but slipped soon enough. The NZD/USD was faring better today with prices gaining 0.49% to test session highs above 0.6763, to trade currently at 0.675.

In Europe, the markets opened with the EUR/USD posting a steady decline following yesterday’s late rally to 1.12165. EUR/USD touched session lows of 1.117 before managing to trim some of the losses. EUR/USD is currently up 0.08% at the time of writing.