EURUSD prefers not to risk. Overview for 11.03.2019

Early in a new March week, the major currency pair is consolidating. 

EURUSD was very active last Thursday and Friday, but investors are very unlikely to have enough strengths on Monday to continue. The current quote for the instrument is 1.1230.

Last Friday, the USD retreated from positions it “captured” earlier due to some rather mixed statistics on the US labor market in February.  The Non-Farm Employment Change was only 20K against the expected reading of 180K. Market players haven’t seen such small numbers for a long long time. On the other hand, what could they expect after the January’s number of 311K? As we said earlier on several occasions, the labor market can’t increase the number of jobs quickly and constantly, it has to make pauses from time to time. One of these pauses can be seen right now. 

Other reports that were published didn’t disappoint. The Unemployment Rate decreased from 4.0% down to 3.8%. The Average Hourly Earnings continued growing in February and added 0.4% m/m, which is better that both previous and expected readings. 

So, apart from the NFP, everything was pretty fine and the USD recovered a bit after that. 

Monday will not be a very busy day when it comes to numbers. However, there are few of them worth paying attention to. 

Germany will report on the Industrial Production in January. The indicator is expected to improve by 0.5% m/m, which is quite good, especially after December’s decline by 0.4% m/m. If the indicator does recover, other related indicators, such as retail sales and consumption, may improve as well. in this case, the stronger the number, the better for the Euro. 

Later in the afternoon, the USA are scheduled to report on the Retail Sales in January, which is not expected to change after losing 1.2% m/m in December. Here, everything is very simple: December, which should have been a very profitable month for the American market, was disastrous due to lower consumer spending because of economic insecurity. Early in 2019, there was a Government Shutdown, leaving a lot of people without salaries. In this light, it’s quite easy to understand why the Retail Sales report was so weak. The only thing that matters here is the indicator’s not being negative again, everything else won’t be critical for the USD.