Economic calendar: US CPI data and ECB Minutes

Summary:

• ECB minutes in the spotlight after Draghi’s remarks
• US CPI inflation will be published in the early afternoon
• DOE report will attract investors’ attention as Brent price fell down to around $82

Thursday is definitely the most interesting day in this week in terms of data releases. The first important reading scheduled for today is ECB minutes which will be published in the early afternoon. On the other hand, investors will be offered CPI inflation data from several countries through the day. However, US CPI inflation print will be the one drawing the most attention. Both US CPI data and ECB minutes may spur additional volatility on the EURUSD. Apart from that, oil traders will focus on the weekly DOE report after yesterday’s API data showed bigger-than-expected build and Brent dropped to around $82. However, the drop in oil prices can be mainly ascribed to the global shift away from the riskier assets.

12:30 pm BST - ECB minutes: The latest ECB meetings were rather boring and seldom brought anything new. Nevertheless, Mario Draghi, the President of the ECB, made some upbeat remarks on inflation. Today’s publication will verify whether his opinion is a common view among European Central Bank members, or is only Draghi’s thought.  

1:30 pm BST - US, CPI inflation: Despite several inflation readings from the Europe being scheduled for today the reading from the US should attract the biggest attention. Inflation data for August, both headline and core, showed unexpected pull back. Was the last month’s data only the one-off incident or was Trump right that there is no need to tighten policy as there is no problem with inflation? We shall see in the early afternoon. Economists expect that the headline inflation will decline to 2.4% YoY against 2.7% YoY previously, and the core gauge will tick higher from 2.2% YoY to 2.3% YoY.

3:30 pm BST - DOE report: The fears of Hurricane Michael have been influencing oil price recently as we pointed in yesterday’s calendar. Moreover, the Bloomberg agency reported on Thursday morning that the United Arab Emirates plans to increase oil production in 3Q. What’s more, yesterday’s API data produced a bigger-than-expected huge build of 9.75 mb. All of these factors as well as sell-off among riskier asset classes is reflected in the current oil price. Today’s DOE may result in a short-term swing but one should remember that wears of global slowdown are far more important for oil prices. It is expected that crude oil inventories data will show a 2.17 mb build.

Central bankers speakers scheduled for today:

• 10:00 am BST - BoE’s Carney, ECB’s Villeroy
• 6:20 pm BST - Fed’s George

A combination of many factors greatly deteriorated the outlook for OIL in the past couple of days. While stockpiles data is unlikely to change the trend on its own it may ease the pain. Brent is trading a notch above the 82$ mark at press time. Source: xStation5