Economic calendar - All eyes on NFP report

Summary:

• Investors will be offered labour market data from the US
• Canadian labour market report scheduled for early afternoon
• US housing starts and building permits will come out too

The economic calendar for Friday is quite busy as several publications scheduled for today seem to be noteworthy. Moreover, all most interesting readings are scheduled at the same time. First of all, investors will be offered the NFP report, but also the US housing market data are scheduled at 1:30 pm GMT. Apart from that, the labour market report from Canada will gather investors’ attention today.

1:30 pm GMT - Canada, Labour Market Report: The Bank of Canada decided to keep rates unchanged at 1.75% later this week. The remarks delivered by the BoC were rather dovish and pushed the Canadian dollar down. When we take a look at today’s calendar, we could notice that this may not be supported by the labour market data. Expectations suggest that employment experienced a 5k drop in February. May today’s publication send the Loonie yet lower?

1:30 pm GMT - US, Non-Farm Payrolls: The NFP reports have been rather strong in recent months what could dampen some fears related to a potential economic slowdown. Nevertheless, expectations say that today’s NFP may not be so good as the previous ones. Market consensus suggests that it may produce a 180k build. A similar figure was published in the latest ADP report as it showed a 183k increase. Moreover, it is expected that the US unemployment rate moved slightly lower to 3.9% from 4.0% seen previously.

1:30 GMT - US, Building Permits & Housing Starts: US building permits and housing starts are scheduled at the same time as the NFP report. Therefore, they may not gather similar investors’ attention. Nevertheless, the housing market data may produce some hints related to the economic situation in the United States. The consensus expects that building permits dropped to 1285k from 1326k and housing starts rose to 1190k from 1078k.

The EURUSD experienced a large step back dropping to a notch above 1.119 yesterday. This move was probably a result of the yesterday’s dovish remarks as the European Central Bank downgraded the economic outlook. A different-than-expected result that may be produced by today’s US readings may spur additional volatility on pairs tied to the US dollar including the EURUSD. Source: xStation5