admin

Economic calendar in Asia Thursday, April 17- Fed speaker, NZ CPI, Australia jobs report

New Zealand inflation data and Aussie jobs report are a couple of focal points for the calendar ahead.

The slight tick higher expected for NZ CPI will not prevent further rate cuts from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. Not in this tariff-war-led pre-recession environment.

Last month’s Australian jobs report showed a substantial drop in jobs, expected to be partially reversed today. Hmmm. Let’s see about that!

As a caveat to both these reports, they are for pre-April, i.e. they don’t capture the initial impact of Trump’s Liquidation Liberation Day reciprocal tariff economic destruction.

This snapshot from the ForexLive economic data calendar, access it here.

The times in the left-most column are GMT.

The numbers in the right-most column are the ‘prior’ (previous month/quarter as the case may be) result. The number in the column next to that, where there is a number, is the consensus median expected.

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.

Economic calendar in Asia Thursday, April 17- Fed speaker, NZ CPI, Australia jobs report Read More »

Oh no! Oil is higher. Crude oil futures settle $62.47

Oh no. Oil prices are now moving up too.

US yields moved 50 basis points last week and although the 10 year yield is down -23 basis points this week. They are still much higher than the 3.86% low yield seen in early April (the current 10 year yield is at 4.27% which is down from 4.59% last week, but up from 3.86% too).

The US stock market is getting tagged with the NASDAQ index now down around -731 points or -4.33%. The S&P index is down 3.12%.

The tariff take home benefit into the US External Revenue Service was promoted as being $2 billion day. The Customs and Border Protection told CNBC that they have collected more than $500 million under Pres. Trump’s latest tariffs. It is unsure if that is a total of $500 million or $500 million a day or $500 million since x-date but it seems clear that it’s not $2 billion a day. What if goods from China tariffed at 145% just stop coming in. What will prices (and supply) do if those imports simply don’t make it to the shores of the US? Remember the supply chains from Covid?

The Fed chair did not promote a rate cut today and getting three might be a stretch in 2025 too, with the unemployment rate of 4.2% and the risk of supply shocks and higher inflation with it. It is not like business inventories are spiking.

Now …. we get oil prices up $1.14 or 1.86%. From the low seen on April 9 the price is up 14.26%. Drill baby drill may not be what oil companies in the US want to do or can afford to do?

Meanwhile, this US Rep took a field trip to El Salvador and snapped this shot. If that is a win, I am missing something.

This article was written by Greg Michalowski at www.forexlive.com.

Oh no! Oil is higher. Crude oil futures settle $62.47 Read More »