The first trading day of 2015 will give us the ISM Manufacturing Index out of the US. Economists expect the index to come in at 57.5, down 1.2 points if compared to November’s level of 58.7. Plenty of regional Fed manufacturing reports came in well below expectations so I would watch out for this one to clock in closer to the 55.5 level than the 57.5. Any reading above 50.0 points towards expansion so it may not be the type of miss which will shave 100 pips off of the USD, but a string of bad economic reports do form a pattern.
I am ready for a disappointment in today’s ISM report. I agree with you that the regional reports signal a weaker figure, but let’s wait for the data to be released so we will see just how weak it is. Over the next six months we could see it move much closer to the 50.0 mark due to the slowdown in China, recession in Japan and issues in the Eurozone.