Canadian Dollar opens the week sharply higher following the strong rally in oil price. WTI crude oil jumps 5% to as high as 54.51 today on news that more countries agree to cut productions. A group on non-OPEC oil producers, including Russia, said they will lower production by 558k barrels a day. That is close to half of the 1.2m barrels a day cut agreed by OPEC countries. Russia will take up 300k barrels a day with the rest shared by 10 other countries including Oman, Azerbaijan and Sudan. USD/CAD extends recent decline to as low as 1.3113 so far and is on course to 1.3005 key near term support.
FOMC rate decision is the main event for the week ahead. Fed is widely expected to raise interest rate by 25bps to 0.75% and there is little chance of a disappointment there. The main focus will be on the new economic projections, in particular the "dot-plot". Markets are now pricing in more than 50% chance of another rate hike by June due to expectation of Donald Trump's expansive fiscal policies. And such expectations are welcomed by other investors as seen in US stocks extending the record run. Dollar could be give a strong boost if the latest "dot-plot" affirms the view of faster tightening in 2017.
Meanwhile, the week will be very busy ahead too. BoE and SNB will meet and both are expected to keep policies unchanged. Sterling seems to be losing some upside momentum recently and will face triple test of inflation, employment and retail sales data. Euro's post ECB selloff will likely continue this week but could look into German ZEW and services PMI for some support. The quarterly Tankan Survey in Japan will also catch some eyes. Aussie will face the tests of employment data and a batch of China data. Here are some highlights for the week:
- Monday: Japan PPI, machines orders, tertiary industry index
- Tuesday: Australia house price index, NAB business confidence; China industrial production, retail sales, fixed asset investment; German CPI final, ZEW ; UK CPI, PPI; US import price
- Wednesday: Japan Tankan; Swiss PPI, ZEW; UK employment; Eurozone industrial production; US retail sales, PPI, industrial production, business inventories, FOMC
- Thursday: New Zealand business manufacturing index; Australia employment; Eurozone services PMI; SNB; BoE, UK retail sales; US CPI, Empire State manufacturing, Philly Fed manufacturing; jobless claims, NAHB housing index; Canada manufacturing sales
- Friday: Eurozone CPI final, trade balance; US housing starts, building permits