Attention on new coronavirus, stock prices, and dollar rise! Okay-chan Man’s one-minute summary of this week's important events (week of March 23)
This Week's Economic Indicators! Three important events that Oka-chan Man is watching
① Novel Coronavirus
② Stock Prices
③ Dollar Strength
Ancient FX Blog
(Below is the video transcript)
Hello everyone, this is Oka-chan Man. I’ve highlighted three points of focus for this week as our main points: the coronavirus, stock prices, and dollar strength.
This week, I expect the week to be influenced by the coronavirus. Among the indicators showing the impact of the virus this week, manufacturing, services, and the composite PMI are especially watched. These indices reflect future business sentiment and how the economy will fare going forward, making them key indicators of how the virus could affect the economy. Of these, PMIs in Europe, especially France and Germany in the euro area where the virus impact is spreading, are particularly noteworthy. They are scheduled to be released on Tuesday the 24th in the late afternoon, around 16:00-17:00, so pay attention to this timing.
Another point is the U.S. initial jobless claims. Why are these important? Because the previous figure was 281,000, while the forecast for the next release is about 2.5 million, roughly ten times higher. That suggests a much larger number of unemployed people, so I’m paying attention to the release on Thursday the 26th.
Additionally, stock prices and dollar strength are in focus. The impact of the coronavirus is most evident in stock prices. After a strong finish to last week, we’ll be watching whether we’ve hit a bottom for stocks or whether there will be a temporary rebound followed by further declines. Dollar strength is another point; last week the dollar continued to rise. It’s at a level where talks of restraint on dollar strength would not be surprising, but so far nothing has happened. It’s not clear whether the U.S. would be unconcerned about dollar strength, but if there are any remarks about restraint or any interventions this week, there could be a rapid move toward dollar weakness, so I’ll be watching whether dollar strength persists this week.
This week, with the coronavirus likely to cause significant market volatility, I plan to manage risk carefully and push ahead.
Let's do our best this week as well. This was Oka-chan Man.
