Economic calendar: European GDP in the spotlight

In Thursday’s economic calendar one can find few interesting readings that a potential to move EURUSD currency pair. GDP report from the euro area will take the spotlight in the morning while a range of the US data will be released in the afternoon. Apart from that, a number of major US companies will submit their earnings reports today.

GDP report for Q4 2018 from euro zone (10:00 am GMT). Mario Draghi warned investors last week that balance of risks for EMU economy has tilted to downside. Today traders will get an opportunity to check whether his opinion will be reflected in growth figures. Market consensus hints that growth in the final quarter of the previous year was weaker than in Q3 (slowdown from 1.6% to 1.2%). However, on the quarterly basis growth should remain at 0.2% QoQ.

Data from the United States. The Federal Reserve signalled yesterday that importance of the macroeconomic data in decision making process is going to grow. Having said that, investors should now pay bigger attention to the incoming datastream from the US. A range of semi-important readings is scheduled for release today in the afternoon. Initial jobless claims (1:30 pm GMT) are seen coming in at 215k. Chicago PMI (2:45 pm GMT) is expected to decline from 65.4 pts to 61.5 pts. Last but not least, new home sales data will be released at 3:00 pm GMT and it is forecasted to show an advance of 4.8% MoM.

Central bank speakers scheduled for today:

• 10:15 am GMT - ECB’s Mersch

• 4:00 pm GMT - ECB’s Weidmann

• 5:45 pm GMT - BoC’s Wilkins

Major US companies reporting earnings today:

• Valero Energy Corp (VLO.US)

• United Parcel Service (UPS.US)

• Sprint (S.US)

• Mastercard (MA.US)

• McKesson (MCK.US)

• General Electric (GE.US)

• Dow DuPont (DWDP.US)

• Amazon (AMZN.US)

EURUSD managed to break above the resistance zone ranging 1.1450-1.1475. The main currency pair is trading a notch below the 200-session moving average (purple line on the chart above). Note that the pair may become more sensitive at 10:00 am GMT when the European GDP report will be released. Source: xStation5