Next Week’s Economic Headlines To Bring A Plethora Of Pressure Points

As we near the end of a year that’s seen significant developments on both economic and geo-political fronts, we have one more ‘big’ week of data remaining for markets. Next week brings a series of potential driversthat could provoke volatility into year-end, with the highlight being the Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday of next week.

Below, we look at three of the high points for global markets as we move into next week, along with relevant areas that traders will likely want to be watching around each event.

Tuesday brings British Inflation

In the month of November there was one currency that stood-out as being even stronger than the U.S. Dollar, and that was the British Pound. After the ‘sharp repricing’ in the value of the Sterling around the Brexit referendum and then the subsequent dovish-campaign from the Bank of England, the prospect of rising inflationary forces began to creep-in. At the bank’s Super Thursday batch of announcements in November, we finally heard some element of acknowledgement of those inflationary forces as the bank adjusted forward-looking inflation expectations-higher, and this gave the appearance that the bank may not be as dovish as previously-thought or transmitted.

On Tuesday, we get British inflation numbers and this will put some data behind this theme. Of course, we will likely see considerable attention around this focused upon the major pair of GBP/USD. But for traders looking at long-term bullish stances in the British Pound, GBP/JPY may be a more attractive option, as this could put the trader in a position where they can go long Sterling without having to trade against the 13-year highs in the Greenback as we move into Fed week.

Cable set a fresh high earlier in the week with a test of the 1.2750 psychological level. After failing to break above this level of resistance, the pair has spent the latter portion of this week working on a retracement. A prior level of resistance around the 1.2500-handle could be an attractive area to look for that next ‘higher-low’ level of support.