Summary:

• FOMC minutes may shake the markets in the evening

• European PMIs miss the expectations

• Stock markets in Europe remain under pressure

Calm is the last word one can use when describing the Wednesday session. After a pack of data from the European economies was released in the morning another set of important readings from the US is going to take a stage in the afternoon. Moreover, in the evening Minutes from the latest FOMC meeting will released. Scandinavian currencies are among the top performers while the British pound shows weakness. Gold trades flat while oil is trading slightly lower.

The British currency continues moving lower despite a pick-up seen in average weekly earnings during the three final months of the past year. At the same time, the unemployment rate unexpectedly increased while employment slowed down missing the consensus.

Unexpectedly PMIs from the major European economies came in vastly below forecasts as well as their prior values in February according to flash readings provided by Markit. While momentum slowed down quite noticeably, it does not suggest any abrupt slowdown in the European economy, however, an inflection point could be getting closer.

Minutes will reveal a discussion from the last meeting chaired by Janet Yellen. It’s important to remember that this meeting took place ahead of the market turmoil. Therefore investors will be eager to know if FOMC participants were closer to back a 3-rates hike scenario than they were in December.

Despite quite an upbeat moods seen in Asia European stock benchmarks opened lower on Wednesday. Taking a look at the Brexit topic it is worth to highlight that the PM Theresa May is facing outcry from her fellow party members.

Central banks have been expressing more doubts and fears than hopes and positives regarding cryptocurrencies, hence from that point of view the latest comments from Mark Carney should not have been surprising. According to him Bitcoin has failed so far to be a legitimate currency as it’s neither a store of value nor a useful medium of exchange.

Taking a quick look at the currency space one may notice that both the Australian dollar and the Japanese yen are among the worst performers in early trading. While there were some reasons to be a little more bearish on the yen, weakness seen in the AUD might be somewhat tricky, at least on the face of it.