Market News

OPEC continues to pump near record oil causing prices to remain near 7-year lows in early Asian trading on Tuesday, and worsening a glut that has already seen hundreds of thousands of excess barrels produced on a daily basis.

The New Zealand Dollar, known familiarly as the Kiwi, fell 1% in today’s trading session as investors wait to learn of the central bank’s decision on additional easing.

Asian share markets were mixed on Monday as caution grew ahead of Chinese data, although sentiment for a Fed interest rate hike continued to be strong.

This will probably be a quieter and less dramatic week ahead, but there are still some significant events scheduled that may have a big impact upon financial markets. Get the economic and political calendar for the popular currencies for the week of December 7, 2015 here.

Asian equities dropped to three-week lows Friday, following a global sell-off as comments from the Fed and the European Central Bank (ECB) had investors still worrying about a Fed rate increase.

This month’s announcement of the monthly U.S. Non-Farm Employment Payrolls change came in almost exactly in line with the market’s expectations, with 211,000 new jobs announced compared to the expected number of 200,000.

President Mario Draghi’s decision to bring the ECB’s deposit rate to a record low of minus 0.3 percent sent the euro higher Thursday.

The Bank of Canada left its key overnight lending rate at 0.50 per cent on Wednesday, stating that the domestic economy has been expanding as expected despite low oil prices and other pressures.

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference is well into the middle of its first week of meetings in Le Bourget, a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris.

Ahead of a looming ECB meeting, Euro investors are nearly certain that the outcome will further devalue the common currency.

A Fed interest rate hike is back in focus with some analysts questioning if a Fed Chair Janet Yellen will introduce the move before the end of the year.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) said it is keeping interest rates unchanged at 2 percent.

The Pound Sterling took a hard hit which brought the GBP/USD pair to below $1.50, a fresh 7-month trough.

Almost a year has passed since oil prices began their sharp descent and almost nothing has changed since then. Despite its detrimental effect on global revenues, Saudi Arabia, Opec’s leading oil producer, is standing firm on its production target and is expected to announce at its Friday meeting that it will maintain its current level of production.

Gold dropped almost two percent to a near six-year low on Friday, marking a sixth straight weekly decline under pressure from a firm U.S. dollar and prospects of a U.S. interest rate rise in December.