What are the main events for today?

In the European session we don’t have much on the agenda other than a couple of low tier releases. As it’s usually the case, most of the action will be in the American session when we get the US Retail Sales, the US import prices and the US Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization data.

13:30 GMT/08:30 ET – US January Retail Sales

The US Retail
Sales M/M is expected at -0.1% vs. 0.4% prior, while the ex-Autos figure is
seen at 0.3% vs. 0.4% prior. The focus will be on the Control Group figure
which is expected at 0.3% vs. 0.7% prior.

Consumer
spending has been stable
which is something you would expect given the positive real wage growth and
resilient labour market. More recently, we’ve been seeing some easing in
consumer sentiment though which might also lead to some softening in
consumer spending.

If the data indeed
softens, it shouldn’t be worrying just yet but should help alleviate further some
inflation worries and keep the market pricing around two rate cuts in
2025.

Central bank speakers:

• 20:00 GMT/15:00 ET – Fed’s Logan (neutral – non voter)

This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at www.forexlive.com.