ECONOMIC DATA OF THE DAY

Time	CY	Indicator	Forecast	Previous
09:30	AUD	Unemployment Rate	5.80%	5.80%
09:30	AUD	Employment Change	10.0k	7.9k
17:00	EUR	CPI YoY	0.20%	0.20%
17:00	EUR	CPI MoM	-0.50%	0.20%
20:30	USD	Initial Jobless Claims	265k	266k

(Source: FabTrader)

SPEECHES

• 12:10:  AUD – RBA’s Hancock in Panel Participation in Sydney
• 19:30: EUR – ECB account of the monetary policy meeting
• 22:00: USD – Feb’s Dudley answers questions at press briefing in New York

OVERNIGHT NEWS

• FED SPEECH: 
• The Minutes from the July FOMC meeting indicated that Fed officials ultimately decided to keep their options open on the timing of the next interest rate increase. “Members judged it appropriate to continue to leave their policy options open and maintain the flexibility to adjust the stance of policy based on incoming information,” 
• The committee spilt into three camps at the meeting: Those who aren’t ready to raise rates, those who are ready, and those who say the moment is drawing near. Several officials “preferred to defer another rate increase in the federal funds rate until they were more confident that inflation was moving closer to 2% on a sustained basis,” the minutes said
• "Some ... members anticipated that economic conditions would soon warrant taking another step in removing policy accommodation,"

FOREIGN EXCHANGE (INDICATIVE RATES)

Currency	Last	% Change	Overnight Range
DXY	94.59	-0.12%	94.51 – 95.102
EURUSD	1.1313	0.10%	1.1242 – 1.1316
USDJPY	99.66	-0.27%	100.04 - 101.17
AUDUSD	0.7667	-0.33%	0.761 – 0.7686
GBPUSD	1.3061	0.04%	1.2979 - 1.3086

(Source: FabTrader)

Commodities (INDICATIVE RATES)

Currency	Price USD	% Change	Overnight Range
Gold	1352.77	0.06%	1337.4 - 1351.79
Silver	19.78	0.81%	19.3918 - 19.8935
Oil (BRENT)	49.85	1.35%	48.55 - 49.75
Oil (WTI)	46.83	1.25%	45.84 - 46.95

(Source: Bloomberg and Saxo)

COMMODITIES

Precious Metals: Gold advances after trading below $1340 on the FOMC minutes before trading higher. Gold is trading at a key resistance zone at 1355 and a break above it could suggest more momentum. Click here for our trade view in gold last week.

Oil: Oil continues to nick higher with 5 consecutive days of gains. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia suggests that it may be increasing its August crude output to a new all-time high as it could give it more leverage to influence the September informal talks on a possible production freeze. With output likely increased in August , watch out for the key resistances level for 50 for Brent and 48 for WTI.

FOREX NEWS

• USD selling resumed after 2 days of profit taking and stops following the FOMC minutes
• The significant mover was USDJPY breaking the 100 level with models selling the break and stops in Asia this morning. The same who pushed USDJPY higher yesterday above 101. The market is now waiting for Yellen to speak at the Jackson Hole but the trend is definitely lower in this pair
• GBP is following the USD Selling and is now trading again at the resistance band 1.3050/1.3070. It will be interesting to see the Retail Sale numbers today and if there was any negative effect from the Brexit. There is no significant resistance above that before 1.3380.
• Despite the USD buying the past 1.5 day, EUR didn’t react much and stayed above the 100d MA at 1.2228. The resistance for the pair is at 1.1400
• In Emerging Markets, The USD selling was fairly mild despite the move in G10 after 2 days of strong USD buying. We might see some sellers to re-emerge today but won’t be aggressive before Jackson Hole

Fed Officials Split in July on Whether Rate Hike Needed Soon

Federal Reserve officials were divided in July over the urgency to raise interest rates again, with some preferring to wait because inflation remained benign and others wanting to go soon as the labor market nears full employment.

Such divergence in views, as shown in minutes of the central bank’s July 26-27 meeting issued Wednesday, means officials are likely to need more concrete evidence that inflation is picking up and economic growth is strengthening before deciding that an increase in borrowing costs is justified. Investors will listen closely for additional clues on timing when Fed Chair Janet Yellen speaks Aug. 26 at an annual symposium hosted by the Kansas City Fed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. 

“Several suggested that the committee would likely have ample time to react if inflation rose more quickly than they currently anticipated, and they preferred to defer another increase in the federal funds rate until they were more confident that inflation was moving closer to 2 percent on a sustained basis,” according to the records of the policy meeting, released in Washington.

“Some other participants viewed recent economic developments as indicating that labor market conditions were at or close to those consistent with maximum employment and expected that the recent progress in reaching the committee’s inflation objective would continue, even with further steps to gradually remove monetary policy accommodation,” the minutes also showed.
Read More at www.bloomberg.com