Markets turn their attention to Europe and the release of some important economic data.

The EURUSD gave up all the gains it made after the Fed interest rate meeting. The pair opened at $1.14119 and climbed to an early high of $1.14369. The rot set in after that, with the euro sliding for a major part of the day, dropping to lows of $1.13411 late. It has come off those lows and is currently trading at $1.13735. The GBPUSD continues its struggles, enduring another negative session. The pair opened at $1.31880 and bumped up to an early high of $1.32260. The pound began its gradual fall not long after hitting that high, bottoming-out at $1.30022. It managed to bounce off those lows, but nowhere near enough to erase the earlier losses. It is currently trading at $1.31275.

The Dow erased the losses suffered earlier in the week after opening at 25,680.09. The index made some small gains before falling to lows of 25,584.33 mid-session. The Dow surged off those lows in late trading, peaking at 26,020.02 before closing at 25,978.36. The Dax continues to wallow in malaise after opening at 11,620.89. The German index ticked up to a high of 11,622.82 before falling for half the session. After hitting lows of 11,466.46, the Dax climbed during the final hours of the day, closing at 11,584.56.

The day ahead sees the publication of a swathe of data, headlined by PMI data from Europe. Away from data and the Brexit saga continues, with the EU agreeing to an extension of the Brexit deadline to May 22. Will this finally yield some results or will it just be a case of “kicking the can down the road”?

Data released today includes:

UK – BoE Quarterly Bulletin

Japan – National Core CPI, Flash Manufacturing PMI

Canada – CPI, Core, Median, Common and Trimmed CPIs, Retail & Core Retail Sales

US – Flash Manufacturing & Services PMIs, Existing Home Sales, Final Wholesale Inventories, Federal Budget Balance

Europe – European, German and French Flash Manufacturing PMIs, European, German and French Flash Services PMIs, European Current Account

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