Summary:

  • The UK labour market release could help the GBP continue rising following a breakout of an important resistance
  • US housing data along with industrial production will offer a final clue ahead of the first GDP reading
  • Oil bounces back in the morning as investors await the API weekly release

Tuesday is going to deliver some curious macroeconomic readings both from the UK and the US economies. The former will report the labour markets data for March/February while the latter is scheduled to release housing and industrial prints. On top of that, there is a plethora of speeches of the Federal Reserve members which may matter for the buck alike.

9:30 am BST – UK labour market report: The Bank of England is going to meet in less than a month, and therefore each reading seems to be of note especially those coming from the labour market or price developments. There is no doubt that the Bank needs to see higher real wage growth before deciding whether to hike rates or not in the following month. The rate rise in May has been almost priced in at the moment, and therefore we see some downside risks for the pound in the very short-run. This is also underpinned by the positioning data pointing to overbought. Average weekly earnings excluding bonuses are forecast to show 2.8% while earnings including bonuses should print a decent 3% rise. At the same time the jobless rate ought to stay unchanged at 4.3%.

1:30/2:15 pm BST – US housing/industrial production: The US housing data is not particularly important, but it could offer some inputs with regard to the pace of investments in construction, and on that account it could matter for the US assets. Building permits are expected to show 1320k whilst housing starts should come in at 1271k. In turn, industrial production is forecast to produce a 0.3% mom increase suggesting a slowdown from 1.1% in February.

9:40 pm BST – API weekly oil change: The last month show a surprising build of crude stockpiles which was almost doubled by the official DoE data. Taking into account that oil prices keep trading close to their highest level since the end of 2014 one may expect that each reading could shake the commodity price substantially.

Central bank speakers scheduled for today:

  • 2:15 pm BST – Fed’s Williams
  • 3:00 pm BST – Fed’s Quarles
  • 4:00 pm BST – Fed’s Harker
  • 6:10 pm BST – Fed’s Evans
  • 7:00 pm BST – Riksbank’s Ingves
  • 10:40 pm BST – Fed’s Bostic

link do file download linkThe pound reaches its new post-Brexit high just ahead of the labour market report. Source: xStation5