There is no doubt that central bankers draw the most attention this week on the back of the ECB’s forum in Sintra, Portugal, where the most influential heads of global central banks take part. One of the first speeches belonged to Draghi as he said that euro zone growth was above trend and all signs pointed to strengthening and broadening recovery. While he stressed that moves need to be prudent and moderate, it was obvious that the hidden message included tapering of bond purchases in a not-too distant future.
Beside him, BoE’s Carney took the floor as well after the release of the Financial Stability Report. In his remarks he put emphasis a few times on indebted households, hence that issue seems to raise some concerns within the MPC contributing to a dispute which has emerged at the latest BoE’s meeting. Although, there have been no relevant moves seen on the GBPUSD, it could change going forward as the pair remains in a position to break through a local resistance zone.
The European indices have started the day with moderate losses following quite subdued Asian session. Some risk-on sentiment has been seen during Asian session as both AUD and NZD have gained. The most market movers within the DE30 have been companies from automotive industry following unexpected reports pertaining to lowering earnings forecasts by Schaeffler.
The only release of note during the Asian trade was trade balance data from New Zealand which was below expectations. A surplus of 103m NZD in May was far below expected 419m and down from 536m registered in April. Moreover, the Chinese PM Li Keqiang said in his speech that China as capable of achieving growth target and while cuts to sectors with overcapacity were necessary, access to services markets will be eased and the government could control risk in the economy.
Looking ahead, the macro calendar is still plenty of releases. First of all, there is an appearance of FED’s Chair Janet Yellen on Global Economic Issues in London. Furthermore, we’ll get the US consumer confidence gauge and data on a weekly change in oil stocks by API.