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Early Europe awaits numbers
Releases from Europe:      April                                                Forecast   Actual    French Business Confidence Indicator    108.0     106.0French Production Outlook Indicator      - 13.0      - 9.0Italian Consumer Confidence Index        99.6       99.8
French business confidence declined in April but the outlook improved mildly as did Italian consumer confidence. The past month has seen numbers look a little better although retail sales has looked [...]

Dollar slightly firmer in Asian trading
Releases from Japan:                                                               Forecast    Actual    February All Industry Activity Index   (MoM)    - 0.5%    - 1.4%March Corporate Service Price           (YoY)     +0.7%    +0.4%
Japan’s All Industry Activity Index inevitably followed the poor showing in the Tertiary Index earlier in the week with a -1.4% decline in February. Rather surprisingly it has been the weakness in [...]

Inflation, interest rates and red herrings…
European releases overnight:
February                                              Forecast    Actual Italian Retail Sales                     (MoM)   - 0.1%    +0.3%Italian Retail Sales                      (YoY)    +0.6%    +2.7%Euro-zone Industrial New Orders   (MoM)   - 0.4%    +0.6%Euro-zone Industrial New Orders    (YoY)    +5.7%    +9.9%
AprilEuro-zone Manufacturing PMI (P)                 51.6       50.8Euro-zone Services PMI (P)                         51.4       51.8Euro-zone Composite PMI (P)                     51.5        51.9
The BOE minutes revealed a sizeable split [...]

Energy and food prices continue to strangle consumer spending power
Releases from Europe:
March                                              Forecast    ActualFrench Consumer Spending    (MoM)    - 0.3%    - 1.7%French Consumer Spending    (MoM)    +2.8%    +1.2%
AprilFrench Manufacturing PMI (P)                 51.6       51.5French Services PMI (P)                         56.8       54.0German Manufacturing PMI (P)               54.8       53.6German Services PMI (P)                       51.5       54.6
More evidence of a consumer squeeze as French consumer spending crashed by [...]

Dollar stable before the European PMI numbers
Releases from Australia:
                                                    Forecast           ActualQ1 CPI                               (QoQ)   +1.1%            +1.3%Q1 CPI                                (YoY)   +4.0%            +4.2%Q1 RBA Trimmed Mean         (QoQ)   +0.9%            +1.2%Q1 RBA Trimmed Mean          (YoY)   +3.8%            +4.1%Q1 RBA Weighted Median      (QoQ)   +0.9%            +1.3%Q1 RBA Weighted Median       (YoY)   +4.0%            +4.4%
April DEWR Skilled Vacancies  (MoM)   -2.2% (prior)   - 0.8% April DEWR Skilled Vacancies   (YoY)   -6.8% [...]

There is no such thing as impossible…
European releases overnight:
March                                             Prior        RevisedMarch Italian Trade Bal Non-EU  EUR  -1.31bn   -1.33bn
Overnight saw the usual barrage of comments from ECB officials on inflation. Noyer said he found it hard to believe that inflation will continue at current levels and said the ECB will hike rates if needed.
Nice [...]

Dollar making gains in early Europe
Releases from Europe:                                              Forecast    Actual March Swiss Trade Balance  CHF   0.70bn    1.25bn
The Swiss trade balance is holding up reasonably well but overall declining – exports taking an 8% fall. Given the current global circumstances this trend is likely to continue for the time being.
The following economic releases are due today:
MarchMarch [...]

Asia sees the Dollar slightly firmer
Releases from Japan:                                               Prior      Current March Supermarket Sales (YoY)  +1.9%    +1.4%
Japanese supermarket sales managed the second consecutive month of annualized gains following 25 months of decline. Perhaps it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise with inflation now pushing prices higher led by food prices which rose by 2.7% and represents [...]

The Australian dollar has maintained a firm stance over the past 24 hours and held above the 0.94 level against the US currency in local trading on Tuesday with a peak close to the 0.9450 level. The currency has gained further support from the firm level of commodity prices over…
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The US dollar is currently steady as we wait later on this afternoon for the US fundamental data concerning housing sector to be released which will bring the greenback even lower as the predictions are not upbeat. The US dollar was downgraded as the Bank of America Corp., posted a…
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