EUR/USD was flat ahead of the Wednesday’s policy announcement from the Federal Open Market Committee. The Committee has started its meeting on Tuesday and will reveal its decision on Wednesday. Markets do not count on any change to the policy, but traders preferred to exercise caution ahead of a major event, resulting in sideways trading for the currency pair.
PPI fell 0.2% in February, matching forecasts exactly. The index was up 0.1% in January. (Event A on the chart.)
Retail sales were down 0.1% in February, also being within expectations. The January’s change was revised from +0.2% to -0.4%. (Event A on the chart.)
NY Empire State Index jumped from -16.6 in February to 0.6 in March, far exceeding market expectations of -10.3. (Event A on the chart.)
Business inventories rose 0.1% in January while analysts had expected no change. (Event B on the chart.)
Net foreign purchases were at -$12.0 billion in January. That is compared to the median forecast of $3.2 billion the December’s value of -$29.4 billion. (Event C on the chart.)
On Friday, a report on import and export prices in February was released. It showed a drop of import prices by 0.3% that followed the 1.0% decline in January. Export prices were down 0.4% in February after falling 0.8% in the preceding month. (Not shown on the chart.)
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