Today, the biggest news among the trading community was on the US-North Korean summit, which ended successfully. As such, the global financial markets are up, with the dollar index remaining largely unchanged.
In addition to the good news from Singapore, traders are focusing on the Brexit issue, UK employment numbers, EU business sentiment, and the US inflation numbers.
In the United Kingdom, the Theresa May government suffered a setback after the sudden resignation of Justice minister, Philip Lee. Philip has been an outspoken critic of Theresa May’s plan on the customs union. His resignation will give him an opportunity to campaign against May’s Brexit policies. In a tweet, he said that his resignation will help him represent the views of his constituents who supported the remainder part of the campaign.
At the same time, the government announced that it would not support a compromise deal offered by a leading conservative pro-Europe group. The vote would have given parliament more control over the outcome should MPs vote down Theresa May’s final Brexit deal.
All this happened as the data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed that more people were employed in May than traders were expecting. The data showed that more than 146K people were employed, which was more than the expected 124K. The unemployment rate remained at 4.2% while the average hourly earnings remained at 2.5%. The claimant change of negative 7.7K was better than the expected 11k. These numbers are good and could provide an incentive for the Bank of England to start normalization.
The chart below shows the movement of the GBP/USD pair has reached 1.3393.
Another important data released today was from Germany. The German Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW) released the business climate index which missed the forecasts by analysts. The data showed that the sentiment among business leaders was at negative 16.1. This was lower than the expected negative 14.6 and was the lowest level since 2012.
In the past three months, the sentiment has been falling after the United States – one of Germany’s biggest trading partner imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum. The US has also launched an investigation into the EU’s car industry with the goal of imposing tariffs. This measure will hit Germany hard because of the central role the automobile industry plays in the industry. The EU ZEW sentiment was also lower at negative 12.6, which was lower than the expected 0.1 gain.
At the same time, the ZEW German current conditions for June declined to 80.6 from last month’s 85. This was the lowest the index has been since April last year. The number shows the net percentage of positive and negative responses about the economy from financial analysts from banks, insurance companies, and industrial enterprises.
Later today, the US will release the data on consumer prices ahead of tomorrow’s Fed meeting. Traders expect the CPI to rise by 2.7% and the core CPI to rise to 2.2% from last month’s 2.1%. In tomorrow’s meeting, traders will want to see what the Fed will say about the inflation and the pace of rate hikes.
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