This article was submitted by Antreas Themistokleous, market analyst at Exness.
This preview of weekly data looks at USOIL and XAUUSD where both commodities seem to pause their aggressive bullish rallies following Chinese thinning trade volumes because of the Lunar New Year holidays.
The first important event on the economic calendar for this week is the ECB’s President Lagarde Speech today at 17:45 GMT. The European Central bank is expected to raise interest rates by 0.50% both in February & March. This could support the Euro against its pairs especially if the hike is more aggressive than expected.
Australian Inflation rate on Wednesday 25th of January at 12:30 AM GMT. Expected to rise by o.2% which could generate profits for the Aussie Dollar since it could influence a more hawkish stance for the RBA on their next interest rate hike.
Bank of Canada Interest rate and press conference also on Wednesday January 25th at 15:00 GMT. Single hike is expected by the market which could be negative news for the loonie whereas a double hike could support the currency especially against the USD.
US quarterly GDP growth on Thursday 26th of January at 13:30 GMT. The consensus is for a decline of 0.6% which could create some losses for the Dollar against its pairs at least in the short term.
Oil, daily
The bullish rally on the price of oil slowed down ,even though still in an uptrend, in the last couple of sessions mostly because of thinner trading volumes in Asian hours which held back because of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Industrial activity is expected to pick up when workers return from the holidays break and the Chinese economy restarts. Weakening on the Dollar is supporting the recent boost on the price of “black gold” further pushing it to the upside.
On the technical side the price is trading at a very strong technical resistance consisting of the 50% daily Fibonacci retracement level and 100 day moving average around the $81,50 price area. The Stochastic oscillator is in the overbought levels for more than a week straight and possibly indicates that a correction to the downside is a possible scenario. If this is confirmed we might see some support around the $79 area which is a strong support area consisting of the 38.2% of the daily Fibonacci retracement level and also a point on the bearish daily trendline.