It’s that time of month again as the big hitting data comes out from the US. There are many releases to be concerned about if you are looking to convert into USD, or indeed if you are a holder of USD. The first data release is the US GDP figure out Wednesday night 22.30pm EST. This is set to be a downgraded figure with expectations marked at 1.3% YoY, revised from last month’s figure of 2.6% YoY. Furthermore, the quartile released US GDP PPI (Product Price Index) figure is expected to have an increased figure of 1.4% on the back of the previous quarter’s 1%. This index is an adjusted figure which does not carry the variables of import prices, and is generally said to be a better performance estimator.
Going forth the US monthly release of the quantitative easing pace will be reviewed Thursday morning at 4am EST. No expectations are set in stone for this announcement, however, plenty of talk last month about the Federal Reserve continuing to support the US economy may have some investors expecting the Bond Purchasing scheme to remain stable or be revised marginally. During this time we will have the Interest Rate decision made, with investors not expecting a revision to be made to the current 0.25%.
To finish the week off we will have US ISM manufacturing data released Friday morning 12am EST. This data set is expected to increase to a figure of 54 from 53.7. This is a reasonable upgrade and should carry a little USD strength if the actual figure matches this.
Finally, Non Farm Payrolls (NFP) and the US Unemployment Rate figures are set to give positive numbers. NFP expectations are at 210K from the previous figure of 192K. Again, the upward revision is coming off the back of the winter storms factor early this year that was set to disrupt employment figures, but in reality, hasn’t. On this note, Unemployment is set to improve slightly to 6.6% from the previous 6.7%. If these figures are realized, we may see a further push up from the USD. Although the AUD has no significant data releases, it will be a volatile week for the AUD/USD pair.