There isn’t too much change in the major pairings this morning compared to where Europe closed out Wednesday. The market awaits the interest rate decisions from the Bank of England and the European Central Bank, who are both expected to trim rates 50 bps. More importantly the market will be looking for developments on the quantitative easing front from both banks.
On the forex news/data front we have at
07:45 GMT French ILO Unemployment (Q-4) expected 7.9%
07:45 GMT French producer prices (Jan) expected +0.3% m/m, -0.4% y/y.
10:00 GMT Euro-zone GDP Q-4 prelim expected -1.5% q/q, -1.2% y/y.
12:00 GMT Bank of England rate decision.
12:45 GMT ECB rate decision.
13:30 GMT ECB’s Trichet speaks at monthly news conference.
We earlier had the release of German retail sales for January which came in worse than expected, at -0.6% m/m and -1.3% y/y compared to median forecasts of +0.2% and -0.7% respectively. However, there was an upward revision to Decembers’ monthly number, from a drop of -0.2% to a rise of 0.5%.