End of the week in the forex markets: what’s happening?

With the foreign exchange markets now drawing to a close due to the end of the week, it’s time to look at what’s happening in the markets on Friday and over the weekend.

On Friday afternoon, there will be a range of major events, especially in North America.

Housing starts data for October will be out of Canada at 1:15pm GMT and is expected to show no change from its previous position of 221,200.

At 1:30pm GMT, Canada’s unemployment rate for October will be out.

This is also expected to stay the same as before, this time at 5.5%.

Building permits for September will show a change when month on month data on those is released at 1:30pm GMT.

This is expected to show a shift in September from 6.1% before to -2%.

Over the border in the US, the first major event of the afternoon will be a speech from Lael Brainard, who sits on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

This is due to occur at 1:30pm GMT.

Wholesale inventories data for September will be out at 3pm GMT.

This is forecast to show no change from its previous place of -0.3%.

The preliminary Michigan consumer sentiment index for November will be out at 3pm GMT too.

This is expected to show a slight upward change from 95.5 to 95.9.

The day will be rounded off by a report from the US government’s Department of Agriculture.

The World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report is often looked at when traders are judging the strength of the farming side of the US economy.

There will also be some events for foreign exchange traders to look out for over the course of the weekend.

Saturday, for example, there will be a number of releases out of China.

Consumer price index data for October will be released at 1:30am GMT and is set to show a change from 0.9% to 0.7% on a month on month basis.

Producer price index data for the same month is also expected.

This is due to show a year on year shift from -1.2% to -1.5%.

A parliamentary election is due to take place in Spain on Sunday, and this could spell some problems for traders of the single European currency if it reveals volatility.

Otherwise, Sunday will be a relatively quiet day – although it is expected that New Zealand will release its electronic card retail sales information for October.

This is expected to show a change from 0.3% to 2.2% on a year on year basis.

Japanese machinery orders data for September will be out at 11:50pm GMT and is expected to show a month on month change from -2.4% to +0.9%.

Traders of several different currencies may also need to prepare themselves over the weekend for a range of economies to close their banks on Monday due to the Armistice, Remembrance and Veterans’ Day holidays around the world.

Canada, the US and France will all be affected by this.