05.02.201813:56 Forex Analysis & Reviews: Weekly review of the foreign exchange market from 02/05/2018

The past week was marked by the end of the fall of the dollar. Although it fell slightly to the single European currency, obviously not at the same rate, and at the end of the week it began to strengthen in general. It all happened against the background of the report of the US Department of Labor, which was adopted rather optimistically. The unemployment rate remained unchanged, and the growth rate of the average hourly wage accelerated from 2.5% to 2.9%. That was enough. However, the dollar did not grow so fast, as the data was actually quite frightening. In particular, the share of labor in the total population remained unchanged, and the average length of the working week decreased from 34.5 hours to 34.3 hours. While there is no catastrophe, there are already signs of overheating of the labor market. At least it is already clear that a shortage of free labor is brewing in the labor market. This means that employers are forced to raise wages, not because of rising labor productivity, but because there is no opportunity to find new staff in the event of employees leaving. If this trend continues, the US economy will face a fall in investment in fixed assets and, as a result, slow or fall economic growth. So it's too early to talk about the trend reversal. Moreover, the results of the meeting of the Federal Commission for open market operations were, to put it mildly, no. Of course, there was no press conference this time, but the text of the accompanying comment turned out to be so faceless that we can not speak about any forecasts and plans yet.

This week, we are waiting for a lot of interesting data, but not from the US. In America, it is worth paying attention to the JOLTS data, which is expected to increase the number of open vacancies from 5,879 thousand to 5,999 thousand. If the forecasts are justified, this will only once again confirm fears about overheating of the labor market. So the dollar has no internal reasons for growth, and everything will depend on the data from Europe.

Foggy Albion will be the hottest place this week, as not only the meeting of the Bank of England will take place, so will also be published data on industrial production. The Bank of England expects exactly one, plans to raise the refinancing rate this year. It is expected that the regulator will raise the rate at least once, to 0.75%. But this will happen in the second half of the year. Investors hope to hear confirmation of these expectations. However, taking into account the results of the ECB and the Fed meetings, there is a high probability that the Bank of England will be cautious and no aggressive rhetoric will follow. There will be a mass of ritual slogans, so that no conclusions can be drawn. This will have a negative effect on the pound. It is also expected that the growth rate of industrial production will slow from 2.5% to 1.0%, which also does not add optimism.

In Europe, it will be quite quiet, especially since the only noteworthy data has already come out. The growth rate of retail sales slowed from 2.8% to 1.9%, and this is in December when consumer activity has traditionally grown. So the single European currency will follow in a general direction, and if the dollar continues to get cheaper, the euro will go up. But everything depends on how the events in the UK will develop.

The ruble remains stable. For a week, the dollar moved within one ruble, which is an extremely small amplitude of movement. At the same time, this week is extremely busy. First, they expect further slowdown of inflation from 2.5% to 2.3%. The Bank of Russia sets a target of 4.0%, and inflation has long been significantly lower and shows no signs of growth. This has already led to the fact that the regulator began to actively reduce the key rate. It is for this reason that the Bank of Russia is expected to reduce the key rate to 7.5% this week. However, following the results of the last meeting, it was already reduced from 8.25% to 7.75%. So it is likely that the Bank of Russia will take a pause and this will be positively received by investors. In addition, on Friday, the US Treasury Secretary said that imposing sanctions on Russia's public debt is unacceptable, since it is an important part of the global financial system and the consequences will be catastrophic. So if the Bank of Russia leaves the rate unchanged, the appetite of investors will only increase.