020 7898 0500With sterling dictating most of the currency movements this week, US dollar investors were keen to see the results of Wednesday’s US Federal Reserve meeting, hoping for further insight into how likely the Federal Reserve deems another interest rate rise in the short term. The meeting minutes highlighted caution, citing the continuing slump in oil price, concerns regarding the performance of the stock exchange and the Chinese economy. Because of these three issues, the central bank gave no idea of when the next rate hike may take place, advising, instead, that it would be too early to decide on a potential rise in March. With minimal data releases, Thursday was also a key day with the weekly unemployment data, which posted yet another stable figure.
Following the cautious comments from the Federal Reserve, we can look forward to inflation data in the form of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) today, with the expectation that there will be no movement on the negative figure we saw last month. This is a key data set that has been struggling globally due to the drop in oil price.
