The US dollar remains stable relative to other major currencies, rebounding from a 3-year low. However, the US currency is still under pressure due to the concerns about the US budget deficit, which, according to experts, could increase to 1 billion dollars by 2019. The taxes reduction and the increase in spending planned by US President Donald Trump could lead to an undesirable inflation increase. Yesterday, the major currency pairs showed mixed results. The US dollar index (DX) closed the trading session with a slight increase (+0.08).
Financial markets participants took a wait-and-see position before the publication of the FOMC report, which will appear on Wednesday, 21 February. This report may inform about further plans of the Federal Reserve regarding the increase of the key interest rate. At the moment, the probability of monetary policy tightening in March is more than 80%. Today, the key events will be statistical data from the eurozone.
At the moment, the "black gold" prices are consolidating. Futures for the WTI crude oil are being traded in the range of $62.00-$62.25 per barrel.
Market Indicators
Yesterday, the US stock markets were closed because of the holiday, so the stock indices did not change relative to the previous values: SPY (+0.03%), DIA (-0.21%), QQQ (-0.45%).
The 10-Year US government bonds yield is at the level of 2.90%.
The news feed on 2018.02.20:
At 12:00 (GMT+2:00) economic sentiment indices from ZEW in Germany and the Eurozone will be published.
China's financial markets will be closed due to the holiday.