Forex Trading Mind

Last Friday’s highly important U.S. non-farm payrolls data was announced last Friday. The figure came in above the market’s expectations, at 235,000 new jobs compared to the consensual estimation of 196,000. The unemployment rate fell slightly, in line with expectations, from 4.8% to 4.7%. Average Hourly Earnings came in slightly below expectations at 0.2% - an increase of 0.3% had been expected.

So, what is in the news this Sunday? President Trump is claiming that the Federal Agencies bugged his phone during the last weeks of the Presidential campaign while the Obama administration. The left/liberal “legacy” media such as CNN and the New York times claim that Trump just made it all up and has no evidence for it at all.

Trump came, he saw, he tempered his speech but he didn’t truly conquer. In yesterday’s speech, he alluded to a forthcoming proposal of strong tax cuts but provided no details whatsoever. Ironically, the USD was already rallying anyway following public comments from two members of the FOMC which strongly implied a rate hike was going to happen this month.

Tonight at 9pm local time, President Trump will make his first address to a joint session of the Houses of Congress. It is not a “State of the Union” speech, but it is very keenly awaited as it is expected that the President will flesh out the details of his economic agenda.

It is a typically quiet Monday, with little for traders to get their teeth into, so consequently there is a great deal of speculation over a few items

Greek debt problems are again coming back onto the radar. Like a far-off iceberg which was already narrowly avoided many months ago, the ship has sailed around and it is beginning to register as a far-off though insistent blip on the screen.

Yesterday the Chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, gave the first part of her regular biannual testimony to Congress before the upper house of the bicameral legislature, the U.S. Senate. The major takeaway from the testimony is widely accepted to be a more hawkish stance, paving the way for a rate hike of 0.25% in the Federal Funds Rate at the FOMC meeting next month in March. This is the most important headline, but her testimony obviously included some more detailed and nuanced messages which I’m going to delve into today.

Later today the Chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, will be giving her regular biannual testimony before Congress. This is an important event as it gives her an important chance to more clearly signal the intentions of the Federal Reserve regarding its implementation of monetary policy. Monetary policy concerning the U.S. Dollar is probably – more than any other factor – the greatest fundamental influence on Forex exchange rates, which over recent years have shown a strong tendency to be driven by the U.S. Dollar.