Event: US Home Prices

Date: Tuesday 29 August 2017 at 13:00 GMT

Markets affected: EUR/USD, USD/JPY

Trending hashtags: #usd, #homes

Standard & Poor’s Case-Schiller Home Prices index for June showed steady increase confirming how an improved jobs market driving demand combined with reduced supply of homes is having an effect on costs. Home Prices came in at the expected 5.7% increase in the surveyed metropolitan areas – similar to the previous month’s growth. Seattle, Dallas and Portland saw the biggest annualised rises with both the number of homes on the market and the length of time on the market have reduced.

Event: Japan Retail Trade

Date: Tuesday 29 August 2017 at 23:50 GMT

Markets affected: EUR/JPY, USD/JPY

Trending hashtags: #yen, #retail

Retail Trade in Japan came in above forecasts at 1.9% annualised change for July. It was a little below the previous month’s change of 2.2% but well above the expected 1.1%. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed retail sales hitting a healthy JPY 12.2 trillion for July which surprised many considering household spending was 0.2% down.

Event: Eurozone Data Releases

Date: Wednesday 30 August 2017 at 09:00 GMT

Markets affected: EUR/USD, EUR/GBP

Trending hashtags: #eur

Wednesday’s deluge of data for the Eurozone showed an improving business climate for the region. Economic sentiment for the month of August came in well above the 111.3 forecast at 111.9, the highest it’s been in a decade. The Business Climate indicator also came above forecasts at 1.09, Industrial Confidence also higher than expected to 5.1 and Services Sentiment also came above the 13.9 outlook to 14.9 as well as revising the previous month’s figure up too 14.2 from 14.1. Moody’s rating agency improved its forecast on the common zone’s economic growth for 2017 to 2.1% and 2018 to 1.9%. Regardless of all this positive data for the region, the EUR/USD remained under pressure following the positive GDP data from the US later in the day.