With today being a rather quiet day for announcements, it gives us a chance to look at the most significant events coming up this week. The two headline events will be the Fed Reserve interest rate meeting and the German elections, which occur at the end of the week/start of next week.

The EUR/USD continued to trade in $1.19 range, where it currently sits at $1.1945. There was a bounce in the Euro last Friday as the US posted some woeful Retail Sales data, which saw a weakening of the USD. Meanwhile, the pound continued its strong performance against the USD, trading in the high $1.35 range, presently $1.3579. This is also as a result of a weakening USD.

All three major US indexes finished in positive territory as the odds that the Fed Reserve will lift interest rates lengthened as US data suffered some big misses on Friday (Retail Sales -0.2% vs 0.1% expected & Core Retail Sales 0.2% vs 0.5% expected). The Dow was up 64.86 points to 22,268.34, S&P 500 up 4.61 points to 2,500.23 and the NASDAQ up 19.38 points to 6,448.47. Meanwhile, European stocks finished down over the last trading session, the DAX down 21.64 points to 12,518.81, meaning it was the best of the European stocks. The FTSE was down 1.10% or 79.92 points to finish at 7,215.47. The UK market was weighed down by news of the terror attack in London last Friday.

Turning to announcements today and the significant events of the week:

Today – Australia New Motor Vehicle Sales, European Final CPI & Final Core CPI, German Buba Monthly Report, Italian Trade Balance, Canadian Foreign Securities, US NAHB Housing Market Index. Meanwhile, there is a bank holiday in Japan today.

Tuesday – Australia Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes, US Building Permits, Housing Starts and Current Account

Wednesday – UK Retail Sales

Thursday – US Fed Reserve Meeting (Federal Funds Rate), Japanese Monetary Policy Meeting, US Crude Oi Inventories & Unemployment Claims

Friday – European, German French Flash Manufacturing PMIs, European, German, French Flash Services PMIs.

Finally, Germany has their national elections coming up at the end of the week. Their election will be held on 24th September (local time) in a race that looks like it will be won be incumbent, Angela Merkel.