EUR / USD, GBP / USD.
Last Friday, no significant events occurred and the European currencies were in a state of free wandering. The final estimates of the CPI for January in the euro area and Germany's GDP came out unchanged. The basic CPI was 1.0% y / y, the total CPI 1.3% y / y, and Germany's GDP for the fourth quarter was 0.6%. The Fed's report on monetary policy was neutral but a warning was issued to prolong low inflation for longer than the expected time. The President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, W. Dudley, expressed his opinion that the Fed's cut-off program that's approaching 2.9 trillion dollars was terminated so that the regulator could set a lower limit for short-term interest rates. L. Meister expects to see a 2 percent inflation in 2 years. On this verbal background, expectations for the probability of a rate increase in March fell to 78.9%. As a result, the euro fell by 35 points. The pound increased by 10 points.
Today, the ECB head Mario Draghi's speech will begin before the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. We believe that nothing new and different from the Central Bank's protocols for the past week will be said. The deputy head of the Bank of England John Cunliffe gave a speech at a university on the topic of "What is money?". The topic does not concern the current policy. The representative of the Federal Reserve Federal Reserve Randal Kvars will then follow to discuss the topic of "Evaluation of the US economy." If the issue of monetary policy is mentioned, we do not expect any new sentiments on the market.
Later today, data on sales of new homes in the US for January will be released. The forecast is 655 thousand against 625 thousand in December. As a result, we expect a moderate increase in the euro and the pound on continuing risk appetites. The euro is waiting in the range of 1.2520 / 40 while the pound sterling is at 1.4070 and waiting further to 1.4150.
AUD / USD.
As usual, everything is calm in Australia. The local news on the continent on Friday and today on Monday are peaceful. Because of this, the Australian currency can safely go in accordance with the general mood of the US dollar and commodity markets, which are actively growing. Oil added 1.8% and iron ore grew by 0.8% (futures for delivery to the Chinese port of Dalian rose by 1.1%). Non-ferrous metals in the Asian session are also growing: copper increased by 0.46%, gold added 0.52%, zinc grew by 0.33%, and lead gained 0.74%. On the stock markets of the ATP are also optimistic: the Australian S&P / ASX 200 hiked by 0.49%, the Japanese Nikkei 225 added by 1.05%, the Shanghai Composite increased by 0.72%, and the Indian Nifty 50 gained 0.50%.
A significant phenomenon in the Australian market is the fall in yields of government bonds across the spectrum (probably as an increase in sentiment for risk). And add to that the decline in Australian securities exceeds the decline in the US. So, for 10-year government bonds, yields fell from 2.837% to 2.759% since Friday.
We are looking forward to the growth of the "Aussie" to 0.7940, then 0.8020.