Economic calendar | February 20 – 24

Monday, February 20

The beginning of the week was quite quiet and calm – not so much because of the completely empty macroeconomic calendar, but because of the weekend in the United States, where the President's Day is celebrated. And as you know, in the absence of American traders, the market always remains stable. 

Tuesday, February 21

On Tuesday, preliminary estimates on business activity indices are published, which, however, will have little effect on anything. The fact is that both in Europe and in the United States, the growth of all indices without exception is expected, which will not allow investors to give preference to one or another currency.

At the same time, it is worth paying attention to the Canadian dollar. A number of macroeconomic data will be published in Canada, the forecasts for which are rather disappointing. Thus, inflation may slow down from 6.3% to 5.9%, and the growth rate of retail sales should decrease from 5.2% to 3.5%. So against the background of the relative stability of the major currencies, the Canadian dollar will be the only one who will show at least some movement. And in the direction of its weakening.

Wednesday, February 22

Wednesday will be similar to Monday in many ways due to a completely empty macroeconomic calendar. However, we can expect the continuation of the corrective movement, which will lead to a slight weakening of the US dollar.

Thursday, February 23

The most significant events of the week will take place on Thursday. We are talking about inflation in the eurozone and GDP in the United States. It is worth noting that in the first case, the final data are published, and in the second only the second assessment. In both cases, they only need to confirm the preliminary data already taken into account by the market. 

In addition, data on applications for unemployment benefits will be published in the United States, which, however, are unlikely to have any impact on the dynamics of the dollar. Judging by the forecasts, the data are expected to be multidirectional: the number of initial requests should increase somewhat, and the number of repeated requests should decrease slightly. In other words, they level each other and will not be able to influence the mood of market participants in any way.

Friday, February 24

The most interesting events will unfold on Friday, and exclusively during the Asian trading session. In Japan, inflation is projected to rise from 4.0% to 4.2%, which may finally convince the Bank of Japan of the need to abandon the policy of negative interest rates and start raising the refinancing rate. So the increase in inflation is likely to be accompanied by a strengthening of the Japanese yen. And this week will actually end, since after that no significant data is published.