3TG FX: Daily monitor

Market news:

Ahead of the European Central Bank meeting later today, most Asian stocks traded lower Thursday as traders digested a batch of regional economic data.

The EU economic summit will get underway today, so keep an ear out on news coming from the conference. This is a two-day event, so most of the major announcements will come tomorrow.

The EUR is trading lower against its main peers this morning.

Intraday options that are due to expire today at 15:00 GMT.

EUR/USD – 1.3500, 1.3615, 1.3650

USD/JPY – 93.00, 93.30

GBP/USD – 1.5600, 1.5620, 1.5630

USD/CHF – 0.9000

Important economic data scheduled for today:

09:45 BoE Governor-Designate Carney’s speech. He is due to testify on monetary policy tools and if the existing framework is good for the UK, in London. As the next head of the BoE volatility will likely be experienced during his speech as traders attempt to predict his effect on the bank’s monetary policy.

12:00 Asset Purchase Facility and Official Bank rate (UK) – The two reading will come out at the same time, but no change is expected on either. Unless the BoE decides to change on of these, Carney’s speech will influence the Pound more.

12:45 Minimum Bid Rate (EU) – Previous: 0.75%, forecast: 0.75%. The six members of the European Central Bank's (ECB) Executive Board and the sixteen governors of the Euro area's central banks vote on where to set the rate. There is no change expected here either.

13:30 ECB Press Conference – The press conference is about an hour long and has two parts – At first a prepared statement is read, then the conference is open to press questions. The conference will be webcasted on the ECB website with a slight delay from real-time. This time the press questions will probably lead to high market volatility.

13:30 Unemployment Claims (US) – Previous: 368K, forecast: 361K. It measures the number of individuals who filed for unemployment insurance for the first time during the past week. This time it might be overshadowed by the ECB Press Conference.