FOMC meeting this week turned out to be surprisingly hawkish as Fed Chair Powell strongly hinted that a rate cut as soon as March is not the base case scenario. Indices plunged in the aftermath, but recovered all the losses later on, supported by solid earnings from Meta Platforms and Amazon. Earnings will remain on watch next week as well, but traders should also pay attention to data from US, Canada, New Zealand as well as RBA rate decision. Be sure to watch US500, USDCAD and AUDNZD in the week ahead!
US500
Hawkish FOMC meeting as well as mixed earnings reports for US top tech companies did not manage to derail market sentiment this week, with US500 climbing to a fresh record high on Friday. Wall Street Q4 earnings season is in full swing and traders will get a somewhat more diverse stream of reports next week. Among next week's earnings highlights one can find Caterpillar (Monday), Ford Motor (Tuesday), Alibaba Group (Wednesday), Take-Two Interactive (Thursday) and PepsiCo (Friday).
USDCAD
USDCAD could see some moves at the beginning and at the end of this week. Traders will closely follow release of services ISM index for January on Monday, 3:00 pm GMT, as well as releases of Canadian jobs data for January on Friday, 1:30 pm GMT. The latter has a bigger potential to trigger larger market moves. USDCAD resumed downward move recently as USD weakness resurfaced amid pullback in US yields.
AUDNZD
AUDNZD is one of the FX pairs that may see some more volatile moves on Tuesday. This is because traders will be offered a rate decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia (3:30 am GMT) as well as New Zealand's employment report for Q4 2023 (9:45 pm GMT). RBA is not expected to change the level of rates, but may offer some guidance on the timing of the first rate cut, which is now priced in for May or June meetings.
