Welcome to the EasyMarkets weekly outlook starting this Monday, March 6. We’ll be looking at the week’s key economic events on the financial calendar covering Monday to Thursday. Be sure to catch up with our Friday morning report that looks back at how the events played out. The week, the central banks of Australia and Europe release their interest rate decisions, we have GDP for the last quarter of 2016 from the EU and some important jobs data from the US.
Event: Australia RBA Interest Rate Decision
Date: Tuesday 7 March 2017 at 03:30 GMT
Markets affected: AUD/USD, GBP/AUD
Trending hashtags: #aud, #interestrate
Last month, the Reserve Bank of Australia maintained the interest rate at 1.5% as most economists expected. This time analysts are split; some see that the next logical move for the bank is to increase rates and with an increase in last week’s employment figures and rise in commodities prices they might be proven correctly. On the other side of the table, a number of analysts are not expecting a raise but are in fact forecasting a cut with their argument being that inflation is relatively low. Keep in mind that during last week announcement we saw a positive end to the year’s GDP. It seems the Bank might go either way, or it may continue to play its cards close to its chest and keep the cash rate unchanged. With such a division among analysts expectations, we might just see some action for the Aussie.
Event: EU Gross Domestic Product (YoY, Q4)
Date: Tuesday 7 March 2017 at 10:00 GMT
Markets affected: EUR/USD, EUR/GBP
Trending hashtags: #eu, #gdp
Tuesday also sees the release of the Eurozone’s GDP result for the fourth quarter of 2016. The previous quarter saw a 1.7% change and the outlook for the final quarter is the same. This data released by Eurostat is an important indicator for those trading the euro as it shows the total value of all goods and services produced in the region. It exemplifies the economic health of the EU so an increase to the expected growth of 1.7% may be bearish for the common currency.
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