EUR/USD declined today as market participants were concerned about global economic slowdown. Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, talked during today’s speech about economic slowdown in the eurozone and said that “substantial accommodation is still needed”. Surprisingly, the EUR/USD pair actually climbed after the comments, though retreated afterwards. Reports released in the United States today were mixed, giving no clear picture about the state of the US economy.
US trade balance narrowed to $51.1 billion in January from $59.9 billion in December. Analysts had expected a bigger deficit of $57.2 billion. (Event A on the chart.)
Meanwhile, US current account deficit widened to $134.4 billion in Q4 2018 from $126.6 billion in Q3. Experts had predicted a smaller increase to $130.0 billion. (Event B on the chart.)
Crude oil inventories expanded by 2.8 million barrels last week instead of falling by 1.1 million barrels as specialists had predicted. The week before, the stockpiles shrank by as much as 9.6 million barrels. At the same time, total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 2.9 million barrels. (Event C on the chart.)
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