Week Ahead Dec 05-09; U.K. Article 50 Hearings and Three Policy Meetings

The week ahead continues to keep traders’ interest undiminished. Three major banks, [B]Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA)[/B], [B]Bank of Canada (BoC)[/B] and [B]European Central Bank (ECB)[/B] will revise their interest rate decisions. Meanwhile, the U.K. Supreme Court started the hearings for the article 50 and will last until Thursday. Eurozone’s GDP and UK’s industrial and manufacturing production are scheduled for release as well.

RBA, at its policy meeting on Monday overnight, is expected to keep its interest rate unchanged at 1.5% while the AUD/USD is trying to cover its sharp one-day losses following the oil production cut announcement by OPEC last Wednesday, which seems to be a correction to the pair’s rising path.
Bank of Canada is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to revise their economy. No changes are expected at the current 0.5% interest rate. The USD/CAD paid no particular interest in the OPEC decision last week, surprising us as Canada’s largest export product is crude oil and petroleum products.

On Thursday, the European Central Bank will revise its negative rate policy, although no changes are expected. ECB cut its deposit rate to the record low of -0.4% in March 2016 while its interest rates stand at zero. The press conference that is following by ECB President Mario Draghi will be cautiously watched by investors as they expect comments for the impact of Italian referendum “no” result to the Eurozone.