- A release of British CPI (inflation) data is due today and is expected to show a very slight annualized increase from 9.9% to 10%. The UK has been subject to a lot of economic and political drama recently which seems to be beginning to come under control, so if this data is better than expected, it might help the British Pound, although worse than expected data could also strengthen the Pound as it would indicate the potential of stronger rate hikes to come from the Bank of England.
- There will be a release later today of Canadian CPI data which is expected to show a small month on month decline.
- The Japanese Yen has continued to weaken slowly in line with the long-term trend that has seen it lose about 30% of its relative value over the past year. The key USD/JPY currency pair again made a new 32-year high yesterday above ¥149 following what appeared to be some kind of failed unofficial intervention by the Bank of Japan which very briefly drove the price down by about 100 pips before it rebounded to a new high. Japan’s Finance Minister and the Governor of the Bank of Japan have both made veiled threats of intervention in recent hours, but to no effect yet as the price continues to rise. This can be an interesting trade for trend traders as the move is in line with a strong long-term trend, but such a long trade faces a real prospect of strong intervention from a central bank so might be seen as exceptionally risky.
- In the Forex market, recent hours have seen a recovery by the US Dollar which gave up some ground earlier this week against most other currencies.
- Commodity markets, including precious metals such as Gold and Silver, and WTI Crude Oil, are continuing to decline in line with their long-term bearish trends.
- Daily new coronavirus cases globally fell slightly last week.
- It is estimated that 68.3% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination, while approximately 8% of the global population is confirmed to have contracted the virus at some time, although the true number is highly likely to be much larger.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 630.3 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.04%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be significantly increasing only in Germany, Italy, and Singapore.