Christmas week in the forex markets: what’s on?

The last full week of 2019 – and the decade – is here. What’s happening in the foreign exchange markets as the year comes to a close?

Today (Monday), there will be a festive slowdown beginning in almost every economy except the United States, where a set of major economic data releases are expected over the course of the afternoon.

Durable goods orders figures for November are due to be released at 1:30pm GMT.

These are set to show a slight change from their previous position of 0.5%, down to 0.1%.

Nondefense capital goods orders will be the main release, and this is due at 1:30pm GMT as well.

This is expected to show a dip from 1.1% to -0.3%.

The Chicago Federal Reserve will release its National Activity Index at 1:30pm GMT covering November.

Over the border in Canada, a gross domestic product release for the month of October is expected at 1:30pm GMT.

This is expected to show no month on month change from its previous position of 0.1%.

In the US, new home sales data for November will be released at 3pm GMT.

This is expected to show a change from 733,000 to 735,000.

The day will be rounded off today by a release of minutes from the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy meeting, which is expected at 11:50pm GMT.

On Tuesday, it’s worth remembering that the Antipodean countries will be celebrating Christmas due to time zone differences.

The rest of the world will also be operating on a much reduced schedule, with only the US showing some routine data releases.

The Redbook index for the dates around 20^th December will be out released.

This year on year measurement of sales growth in stores will be out at 1:55pm GMT, and a month on month version will also be released.

At 3pm GMT, the Richmond Federal Reserve will release its manufacturing index for December.

Wednesday will be mostly silent due to the Christmas Day holiday, although there will be some Japanese action last thing at night in the GMT time zone.

Data on foreign investment in Japanese stocks will be released at 11:50pm GMT, for the dates around 20^th December.

Information on foreign bond investment for the same period will be out then too.

Looking ahead to Thursday, the Boxing Day holiday is likely to keep things less busy.

However, there will be marginally more releases on the cards compared to Christmas Day.

A speech from Haruhiko Kuroda, who is the governor of the Bank of Japan, will occur at midnight in the GMT time zone.

Data on Japanese construction orders for November will be out at 5am GMT.

Year on year, this was last recorded at 6.4%.

The US will be briefly in the forex headlines at 1:30pm GMT when initial jobless claims data for the dates around 20^th December are released.

This is expected to show a change from 234,000 to 220,000.