22.02.201912:11 Forex Analysis & Reviews: Review of the foreign exchange market on 02.22.2019

In yesterday's result, the dollar remained virtually unchanged, although during the course of trading, it pretty much left from side to side. This is largely due to statistics coming out. Thus, the preliminary data on business activity indexes in Europe showed that the manufacturing index fell from 50.5 to 49.2, which is extremely bad since a decline in this indicator below 50 points indicates a stagnation of the industry. But at the same time, the business activity index in the service sector increased from 51.2 to 52.3, which led to an increase in the composite index from 51.0 to 51.4. In general, the data came out slightly better than expected. If you look at individual countries in the euro area, for example in Germany, the index of business activity in the services sector rose from 53.0 to 55.1 while the industrial index fell from 49.7 to 47.6, which indicates a deepening recession in European industry. Nevertheless, due to the growth of the index in the service sector, the composite index of business activity in Germany grew from 52.1 to 52.7. In France, the picture is slightly better in terms of dynamics, since all indices showed an increase. Indeed, both the service sector index and the composite index remain below 50 points, which clearly indicates the extremely weak state of the second eurozone economy. In particular, the business activity index in the service sector rose from 47.8 to 49.8, and the composite index from 48.2 to 49.9. However, the production index rose from 51.2 to 51.4. In addition to business activity indices, inflation data were published in the euro area countries, which showed that in Germany, it fell from 1.6% to 1.4%, in France from 1.6% to 1.2%, and in Italy from 1.1% to 0.9%.

The American statistics was also not so unambiguous. Initially, there were data on applications for unemployment benefits, wherein the total number decreased by 78 thousand. In particular, the number of initial applications decreased by 23 thousand and repeated ones by another 55 thousand. Also, the number of orders for durable goods increased by 1.2% but they predicted a growth of 1.5%. This became a warning bell that the rest of the data will come out somewhat differently as expected. This was confirmed by the publication of preliminary data on business activity indices, which showed an increase from 54.2 to 56.2 in the services sector but the industrial index fell from 54.9 to 53.7. Of course, the composite index increased from 54.4 to 55.8 but a reduction in the production index is somewhat alarming. But what is more important is the decline in housing sales by 1.2% in the secondary market where sales are falling for the second month in a row. Thus, neither European nor American statistics could give an unequivocal answer to the question of what to buy.

Today, the final data on German GDP has come out, confirming the fact of economic growth slowdown from 1.1% to 0.9%, which casts doubt on the growth prospects of the whole of Europe with the slowdown of the largest economy. Also today, the final data on inflation in the euro area will be published, which should confirm its decline from 1.6% to 1.4%. The very fact of a decline clearly indicates that the European Central Bank will not even think about raising the refinancing rate, at least until the end of this year.

Thus, since the data are published only in Europe and the forecasts for them are rather negative, it is worth waiting for the dollar to strengthen. Consequently, it is most likely that the single European currency will drop to 1.1325.

The pound will follow the single European currency, which has to decline to 1.3000.