1Finance

Weekly Outlook: 2017, October 08 - October 15

The US dollar remained strong and enjoyed mostly upbeat data. Can we expect further gains? The focus remains on the greenback with the FOMC minutes, US retail sales and the all-important inflation figures Here are the highlights for the upcoming week.

1. JOLTS Job Openings: Wednesday, 14:00. A level of 6.06 is on the cards now.
2. FOMC Meeting Minutes: Wednesday, 18:00. In the September, meeting, the announced the beginning of reducing its balance sheet, as widely expected. They also left their rate hike projections unchanged for 2017 (one more hike) and 2018 (3 hikes). The eagerness to continue raising rates comes despite slower inflation, something that Fed Chair Yellen described as a “mystery”. The minutes from that meeting are released now. It is important to note that the text is edited until the very last minute, leaving room for sending the desired message to markets. The focus will be on how worried they are of low inflation.
3. US PPI: Thursday, 12:30. Headline PPI is expected to rise by 0.4% while the core number is predicted to advance by 0.2%.
4. Mario Draghi talks: Thursday, 14:15. The President of the ECB will talk in a panel in Washington and may shed some more light on the upcoming decision to reduce its bond-buying scheme. Will he still express concern about the exchange rate? EUR/USD is lower since he voiced his complaints.
5. Lael Brainard talks: Thursday, 14:15. Brainard is a permanent voter in the FOMC and her opinions are in line with the majority. She could provide a valuable to the latest jobs report and more importantly, about the potential rate hike in December.
6. Jerome Powell talks: Thursday, 14:30 and also Friday at 17:00. Powell is also a Fed Governor who rarely discusses monetary policy. Nevertheless, his words are of higher importance now as he is one of the candidates to head the Fed. In his previous appearance, Powell did not offer insights about interest rates.
7. US CPI: Friday, 12:30. Headline CPI is expected to rise by 0.6% this time, while core CPI by only 0.2%.
8. US retail sales: Friday, 12:30.Overall sales volume is predicted to bounce back by 1.5% and core sales by 0.9%.
9. US consumer sentiment: Friday, 14:00. We now get the preliminary release for October which is forecast to be very similar: 95.4 points.

the source