The Japanese yen is the main mover so far today as it fell following BOJ governor Ueda’s remarks earlier in Asia. Ueda didn’t offer any hints of imminent policy tightening, presenting some ambiguity to the timeline ahead of next week’s meeting. As a result, USD/JPY rose from 146.90 to 147.40 and sitting thereabouts now.
Besides that, major currencies are looking fairly muted across the board. The dollar is keeping steadier as all eyes are on the US CPI data coming up later today. The key economic data release will likely see a lack of appetite in chasing any moves in the session ahead.
US futures are showing a modest bounce after a sluggish showing yesterday, with S&P 500 futures seen up 0.4%. Tech shares are once again leading the bounce but it is still early in the day. We’ll see what the inflation numbers have to offer later in US trading.
As for European trading, we do have the UK labour market report coming up. Just keep in mind that ONS did reweight its methodology as noted in the previous release here. As such, we can’t really take the numbers at face value but if anything else, just keep an eye out on wages data. That will be the more important one for the BOE outlook.
0700 GMT – Germany February final CPI figures
0700 GMT – UK February payrolls change
0700 GMT – UK January ILO unemployment rate, employment change
0700 GMT – UK January average weekly earnings
1000 GMT – US NFIB small business optimism index
That’s all for the session ahead. I wish you all the best of days to come and good luck with your trading! Stay safe out there.