Matt Weller

The debate over Theresa May’s Brexit deal is careening toward a dramatic conclusion ahead of the scheduled Parliamentary vote on Tuesday.

The minutes from each Federal Reserve meeting are released three weeks after the meeting itself, meaning that they’re generally stale under the best of circumstances...

Generally speaking, US traders have been focused on the other side of the Atlantic this week, with particular attention on the continued Brexit drama and the mostly as-expected ECB meeting. With those situations (at least temporarily) behind us, the market’s eye has shifted back stateside in advance of next week’s highly-anticipated Federal Reserve meeting.

<p>The March Non-Farm Payroll report will be released tomorrow at 8:30 EST (13:30 GMT) with expectations centered on a headline print of 206 after last month’s strong 242k reading. Unfortunately, due a quirk in the calendar this month, the NFP report will be released <i>before</i> two of the most reliable indicators, the ISM Services and Manufacturing PMI figures. Therefore, the notoriously difficult-to-handicap release will be shrouded in even more uncertainty than usual this time around. That said, the leading indicators that we do have in hand still point to another decent report: during the NFP survey week, initial unemployment claims were essentially unchanged relative to last month at a historically low level (259k), while yesterday's ADP Non-Farm Employment report came out in-line with expectations  at 200k.</p>

<p>As we noted yesterday, market volatility was expected to pick up as we moved through the week as the top-tier data releases and traders at their desks gradually ramped up. Today we’re getting our first look at that phenomenon, with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen making some waves at her speech to the Economic Club of New York.</p>

<p>It’s been an exceedingly slow start to the week with most of Europe out of the office for an extended holiday weekend, but trade is starting to pick up modestly heading into the US session.</p>

<p>Many traders are already looking ahead to the holiday weekend, so it’s difficult to expect much volatility from the remainder of this week’s trade, but there’s one key technical formation to keep an eye on both tomorrow and heading into next week.</p>

<p>Despite a weak-but-still-better-than-expected retail sales report out of the UK and a smattering of second-tier US data, yesterday’s global market trends have generally carried over into today’s trade: the US dollar is edging higher, commodities (prominently including oil) are falling, and global equities are edging lower once again. </p>

<p>The dollar remains the currency market’s standout performer for the second straight day, gaining value against each of its major rivals after this morning’s as-expected New Home Sales report. Despite consistent strength in the greenback each day this week, the world’s reserve currency is still down from its pre-Fed levels of last week, so it’s difficult to draw any conclusions about the sustainability of the current move, especially due to the lower liquidity pre-holiday conditions.</p>

<p>By now, you’ve no doubt heard about today’s horrifying events in Brussels, and we wanted to start by saying that our thoughts go out to the bombing victims and their families. Not surprisingly, today’s events have overshadowed the traditional day-to-day movements of the markets and are leading to a big risk-off move in global equities, as well as safe haven demand for assets like gold, as <a href="http://www.forex.com/post?SDN=c75f6048-dbbc-4903-8f8a-ffa5b71ee221&Pa=20db1fa6-e674-420c-9a87-2ee29261d638">my colleague Fawad Razaqzada noted earlier</a>. </p>

<p>With markets essentially trapped in near-term stasis as traders wait for higher impact data, it’s a good time to take a step back and look at the longer-term technical picture on AUD/USD. For more than a year, from mid-2014 to mid-2015, the Aussie consistently lost value against the greenback, dropping more than 2,500 pips in the process. </p>