Market Snapshot – Markets Calm Ahead of FOMC

Markets Calm

The markets have been calm ahead of the slew of data from the UK and the US that is scheduled to be released during the course of the day. While we had the inflation report from the UK, we have the FOMC meeting minutes later during the US session and we wait and look ahead for the same. The report from the UK has not been as hawkish as the market would have expected and this has led the pound lower but the choppiness and the volatility is likely to continue in the short term as we wait for the FOMC minutes. The dollar bulls would be hoping to see some strong hawkish comments in the minutes that would keep the door open for a rate hike in March and for further rate hikes during the course of the year. This hawkishness would be dollar positive and would lead the pair lower during trading in the short term. On the other hand, if the Fed is not as hawkish as expected and continues to use the same language saying that they would wait for the incoming data to take a decision, then the dollar is expected to weaken.

Petro ICO Raises Doubts

On the crypto side, we have the announcement from Venezuela saying that they would be launching a pre ICO of their cryptocurrency called Petro and they also say that it would be pegged to the booming oil industry in that country. But considering the fact that their economy is in a shambles and there has been a lot of mismanagement, it remains to be seen how much of trust would be placed in this ICO and how much of funds it would be able to gather to help the embattled economy. In other news, the ETH prices have come under pressure and have fallen below the $900 region and continue to trade below that as of this writing.