Light trading in Currency Markets with U.S. holiday today.

March 21, 2008 - Forex Economic News

The Currency Trading Markets are being lightly traded today as the United States markets are closed for Good Friday. The holiday capped off a week that saw the U.S. dollar rebound against major currencies after continued declines for the past few weeks. Next week, there is a full plate of global fundamental news coming out including GBP Rightmove House Prices, U.S. Consumer Confidence, U.S. New Home Sales and the Euro Current Account data to name just a few.

Today's news releases included French Consumer Spending(eur) on manufactured goods which rose 1.2 percent in February rebounding from a 1.3 percent drop in January according to the Insee statistics office. February's consumer spending year on year rate showed a increase to 3.7 percent compared with January's annual rate of 2.3 percent. Car purchases provided a boost to the consumer spending increase.

Retail Sales Figures out of Italy(eur) showed that retail sales increased by 0.2 percent in January and increased 1.0 percent on the year. An Italian consumer confidence survey was also released today by Isae and showed that consumer confidence declined in March compared to last month. The consumer index score for March was 99 which was down from February's score of 102.8. The score of 99 was the lowest recorded in the survey since May of 2004. The current economic situation survey fell from minus 118 in February to minus 132 in March and marked its lowest level in 14 years. The Isae monthly survey is based on a sampling of 2,000 Italian families.

Monday economic releases:

GMT

00:01 am GBP House Prices(Rightmove).
05:00 am JPY Supermarket Sales
14:00 pm U.S. Existing Home Sales(NAR)

Tags: france consumer spending, italy retail sales, italy consumer confidence, Isae, us holiday,

Blog Home