The Federal Open Market Committee released minutes of its March meeting today. EUR/USD dropped below the opening level after the release though the currency pair was moving down even before the event. The minutes were not entirely favorable to the dollar, but it looks like market participants preferred to pay attention mostly to the good part.
US crude oil inventories grew by 10.9 million barrels to a new record last week. This is compared to the forecast increase of 3.3 million and the previous week’s growth of 4.8 million. At the same time, total motor gasoline inventories increased by 0.8 million barrels and are well above the upper limit of the average range. (Event A on the chart.)
FOMC minutes showed that there were Committee member that thought that an interest rate increase may be appropriate in June:
Several participants judged that the economic data and outlook were likely to warrant beginning normalization at the June meeting.
Yet there were also policy members who are much less bold and who believed that monetary tightening should happen as late as the next year:
However, others anticipated that the effects of energy price declines and the dollar’s appreciation would continue to weigh on inflation in the near term, suggesting that conditions likely would not be appropriate to begin raising rates until later in the year, and a couple of participants suggested that the economic outlook likely would not call for liftoff until 2016.
The minutes also emphasized that that timing for a rate
Yesterday, a report on consumer credit was released, showing growth by $15.6 billion in February. The actual increase was bigger than the predicted $12.4 billion and the revised January’s gain of $10.8 billion ($11.6 billion before the revision.) (Not shown on the chart.)
If you have any comments on the recent EUR/USD action, please reply using the form below.
