Nataly Kambur
Last week, almost all of the emerging currencies gained some value against the U.S. Dollar. On the contrary, the so-called G10 basket of currencies stayed withing a rather narrow price range against the dollar, with the New Zealand Dollar being the only exception (it devalued by 1% over the reporting period).
Over the next few days, there will be several events influencing the currency market. The ECB is to make their decision on Wednesday. the Fed's FOMC is to release their latest meeting minutes on the same day. FortFS experts expect both of them to announce that they are going to be cautious in terms of their money-and-credit policies.
The British Pound. Theresa May tried to break away from the Brexit deadlock by starting talks with the opposition. At the moment, the talks haven't had any progress. So, the most probable scenario is a considerable delay, or a series of short delays, for initiating the Brexit process. With that being said, the British Pound exchange rate will depend on 2 factors within the next few days. Firstly, its about the results of the mentioned talks. Secondly, it's about the Euro Council decision on Theresa May's request to extend the Brexit decision until June 30, 2019. The meeting is scheduled on April 10th, 2019.
The common European currency. Last week, the ECB got extra negative info. The thing id, the core inflation rate dropped all the way down to 0,8% in March year-over-year against an expected value of 0,9%. Apparently, this value is way below the ECB's target of 2%. Also, this is the lowest value in 6 months. On the other hand, the retail sales increased by 2,8% y/y in February 2019. With that being said, the Eurozone economy is likely to keep showing moderate growth, which is likely to be backed by the ECB's monetary stimuli.
FOrFS experts think the ECB will announce some changes to their monetary policy during the next meeting in April. During the press conference, the experts are likely going to discuss the possible scenarios if the ECB is willing to expand on its monetary stimuli, coupled with the impact of negative interest rates on the banking system.
The U.S. Dollar. The amount of new jobs created in the United States in March seems to have increased against February's bottom. Last week's figures that came from the U.S. labor market seem to confirm that the slowdown seen over the first few weeks of 2019 turned out to be a temporary phenomenon (probably, due to purely technical problems related with the stats and seasonality for Q1 2019). On top of the mentioned FOMC meeting minutes, the inflation figures scheduled for Wednesday are likely to become a major event for the week. This is probably going to be a test for the Fed's new position. In particular, the central bank is expected to be quite calm inflation-wise, which will make it possible to keep interest rates stable throughout 2019.
Nataly Kambur
