USD

The US Dollar weakened at the back end of last week after some turbulence between the US and China regarding the phase one deal in the trade war. This week the Federal Reserve will be holding their interest rate meeting after Fed policymakers hinted that the minutes would have a significant impact on the rates. On Tuesday, the US will be releasing their housing data, housing starts has been forecast to increase from 1.25M to 1.32M while building permits is likely to drop from 1.38M to 1.36M for October.

Influences on HKD, SGD & AED
Singapore are set to release their balance of trade for October on Monday, expectations are that it is going to rise to SG$4.4B from SG$3.83B while their GDP growth rate is likely to increase to 0.6% from -2.7% for the third quarter of the year, neither of these should impact the SGD too much unless they miss the market forecasts, then we can expect to see some deviations in the rate. Hong Kong are releasing their unemployment figures for October on Monday, it is expected to drop from 2.9% to 2.8%, then on Thursday, Hong Kong’s inflation rate is likely to rise from 3.2% to 3.3%. Once again, in the absence of any data out of the UAE, the Dirham will be driven by the USD and counter currency actions.

AUD

Last week the Australian Dollar lost against most major currencies following a poor labour report. This week we have the Reserve Bank of Australia’s meeting minutes after they kept their cash rates at 0.75%. Market watchers should keep their eyes on Governor Philip Lowe’s speech on unconventional monetary policy as the RBA have hinted that they are considering quantitative easing in the foreseeable future. On Thursday, the flash manufacturing and services PMI’s have both been slated to drop, the former is likely to move from 50.3 to 50.1 while the latter has been slated to drop to 50.8 from 52.4.

NZD

The New Zealand Dollar strengthened drastically last week after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand decided to hold interest rates at 1% after markets had already priced in a 25-basis point cut. This week we will be looking at the quarterly PPI reports that are set to be released on Monday. PPI input is expected to come in at 0.5% for the third quarter of the year while the PPI output figure has been slated to show 0.3% growth in the third quarter of the year.

GBP

The Brexit opinion polls are likely to be the most important driver for the British Pound this week as December 12’s general elections start to approach. The UK is set to release some medium tier data reports starting on Tuesday, the CBI industrial index is likely to improve from -37 to -30 while the public sector borrowing has been slated to dip from £8.7B to £8.5B for October. Word has also come out that all the Conservative Party candidates have pledged to back PM Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.

EUR

It look like it is going to be a turbulent week this week for the Euro with the European Central Bank set to have their monetary policy meeting, they kept rates and bond purchases unchanged last month and Euro traders should keeping an ear out for remarks from the Governing Council as Draghi heads his last policy meeting ahead of Lagarde’s testimony next week. The Eurozone will be releasing their PMI readings this week, they will be hoping for another positive batch of readings after October’s numbers picked up following a streak of worse-than-expected results. French manufacturing is likely to rise to 50.9 from 50.7 while their services figure is likely to move to 53.0 from 52.9. The German flash services figure is likely to rise to 52.0 from 51.6 while the manufacturing PMI is likely to rise to 42.9 from 42.1.