Of course all the attention is on the US presidential elections today. Nothing can move the forex market today unless it is election related. But don´t forget about the economic data guys. It might not have a say in the market today, but rest assured that the market will catch up with the economic data which has been ignored in the last few days.
So, what do we have so far today?
Looking at the economic calendar, I can mostly see red numbers, which is not good obviously. When the actual numbers are red, it means that they have missed the expectaions, when they are green they are above the expectations.
The Chinese started the day early as usual, with the trade balance considerably lower than what was expected. You can see this both ways; you can assume that a lower trade balance comes as a result of higher domestic demand, which would balance or even surpass the increased demand for Chinese exports. This is a good sign for the Chinese and global economy. Alternatively, you can assume that the Chinese exports have slumped due to decrease global demand.
Over to Europe (if the Brits still consider their country Europe), the UK data seems a bit of a mixed bag at first glance, but looking at the details, it is mostly negative. The manufacturing production grew 0.6% last month, while the industrial production fell by 0.4%. The surveying firm ONS said that this industrial slowdown came from the maintenance work being done at the North Sea oil fields. That might be true for last month, but the Q3 numbers show a 1% contraction for both categories, so overall this report is negative.
In mainland Europe, the unemployment rate in Switzerland continues to remain at 3.3%, so I don´t see what the SNB (Swiss National Bank) keeps moaning about.
The German industrial production chart is very volatile
But, the worst news today came from Germany. The industrial production there declined by 1.8% last month. That comes a week after the soft German factory orders so that´s not a good sign, especially when the imports and exports are declining too. We have seen some good numbers from Europe in the last couple of months, so if the negative data continues for another 1-2 weeks, then the positive trend will definitely be over.