A relatively quiet day for fundamental news on the economic calender today, both for the Europe and the US, with the only items of  European data being the German Unemployment numbers followed shortly afterwards by the Consumer Confidence data. The first of these is forecast at 44k against a previous of 31k, and measures the change in the number of unemployed people during the previous month – always a key number as Germany is generally considered to be the powerhouse of Europe. Should these numbers be better than expected then this may help ease the Euro higher this morning. The Consumer Confidence Index is yet another sentiment indicator ( of which there are many) which are supposed to provide a guide to how consumers “feel” about the current economy with any figure below 0 indicating a negative feeling, and above zero is positive – the forecast for today is -24, little changed from last time at -24.

The most significant number for today will be the US weekly Unemployment claims, which are forecast to be worse than last week at 573,000, an increase of 19,000 week on week.  Although it’s generally viewed as a lagging indicator, the number of unemployed people is an important signal of overall economic health since consumer spending is highly correlated with labor conditions. Should the numbers be better than expected then this may help the US dollar push higher later today.

You can keep up to date with all the latest fundamental news on the economic calendar, latest currency news and live currency charts by simply following the links.  I have also included details on an excellent ECN broker.

A day of contrast for fundamental news on the economic calendar today, with only one item of note for Europe, whilst the US market is peppered with news items and speeches throughout the afternoon and evening trading session in New York. So starting in Europe we have the German Preliminary CPI data, always a little odd as it is never released as one item of news, but is drip fed throughout the day, as each German state reports separately. Most economic calendars generally list this item as an ‘All Day’ event because the  data is compiled from 6 German states which report their CPI throughout the day. There are 2 versions of CPI which are normally released about 15 days apart – the Preliminary is first, and followed by the Final. As you would expect the Preliminary release is the Euro zone’s earliest major consumer inflation and therefore the one that has the most impact on the markets. As consumer prices account for a majority of overall inflation or deflation, it is therefore important in currency valuation since price changes will tend to dictate the ECB’s policy for interest rates. The forecast for today is 0.2% against a previous of 0.4%.

The US trading session gets underway with the Core Durable Goods orders numbers,  which are expected to show a fall on the previous month ( down to 0.1% from 1.1% last time) but with  both General Motors and Chrysler closed for at least part of the month, this will not surprise the markets, and if the number is better than expected then this could be good news for the battered US dollar. This release is coupled with Durable Goods Orders which is forecast at -0.6%, again well down on last month at 1.8%. The next item of fundamental news this afternoon are the Crude Oil Inventories, which whilst a US data set, always have a greater impact on the so called ‘com dollar ‘ currencies such as the USD vs CAD due the latter’s significance as an oil producer. The forecast today is for inventories to fall from -1.8  last time to – 1.1 this time. Finally this evening we have the release of the Beige Book which is an anecdotal report, which helps the FOMC in their analysis of the economy and which is therefore used in reaching their next decision on interest rates. However, it tends to produce a mild impact as the FOMC also receives reports which are not published namely the Green Book and the Blue Book , and it bis generally believed that these are far more influential to their rate decision, than the Beige book – but nevertheless an interesting piece of fundamental news.

Peppered in amongst all the above we then have a series of speeches from the great and the good including FED Chairman Ben Bernanke who continues his series of TV recorded earlier and released each evening, and finally FOMC member William Dudley who is due to speak about factors driving US economic growth and inflation at the Business Group Association, in New York – so all in all a busy afternoon!

You can keep up to date with all the latest fundamental news on the economic calendar, latest currency news and live currency charts by simply following the links.  I have also included details on an excellent ECN broker.