Plenty of activity throughout the week, with the UK interest rate meeting and the US CPI & Retail Sales figures the highlights.

The Euro continued its strong performance over the USD, staying in the $1.20 range, where it currently sits at $1.2017. It’s hard to see any European data announcements moving the Euro either way, meaning that it will be US data or world events that are likely to move the EUR/USD pairing. The AUD strengthened against the USD as well, with the Aussie dollar hitting as high as 0.8124, before coming back to its current level of 0.8047. This is mainly to do with a weakening USD, rather than any strength from Australia.

Gold was performing strongly as of last Friday, hitting highs of $1,362.40, before finishing in the low 1350s. As of this morning however, gold has pulled back a small amount, currently down $8.80 to $1,342.40. Gold could prove to show a little volatility this week, especially if the tensions in North Korea rear its ugly head again.

US stocks remained mainly flat at the end of the trading session, with Dow Jones up 13.01 points. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ were down -3.67 & -37.68 points respectively. The same can be said for the European markets. All the major indexes ended mainly flat, with some finishing slightly ahead, while others ending slightly down.

Looking ahead to today and the most significant announcements for the rest of the week:

Today – Japan Core Machinery Orders, M2 Money Stock, Tertiary Industry Activity, Prelim Machine Tool Orders, Italian Industrial Production and Canadian Housing Starts.

Tuesday – UK CPI, PPI Input & RPI

Wednesday – US JOLTS Job Openings & PPI, UK Average Hourly Earnings

Thursday – US Crude Oil Inventories, CPI & Core CPI, Unemployment Claims, China Industrial Production, Australian Unemployment Rate & Employment Change, UK Official Bank Rate & Asset Purchase Facility

Friday – US Retail & Core Retail Sales, Industrial Production.