Daily Market Color 05/20/2013

Daily Market Color

05/20/2013

Economic Reports &Headlines

Today is a relatively light day for the global economic calendar. Over the weekend Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, gave a graduation speech at Bard College. The speech was inspirational and not focused on current monetary policy.   

April’s Chicago Fed National Activity report came in below trend at a larger pace than the previous reading, -0.53 Vs -0.23.

North Korea fires six missiles in three days, according to Reuters report.

Future Reports

Late on this evening, the Reserve Bank of Australia will issue minutes from its most recent meeting.

Tomorrow the Bank of Japan will make its monetary policy announcement. Markets are expecting the bank to leave monetary policy unchanged.

Over in Germany, we will get a read on producer prices for April. Consensus is calling for a -20bps month over month decline.

Consumer prices for April in the UK are expected to increase 40bps on a monthly basis.

During the evening, right before Japan’s trading session begins, we will get read on trade in Japan. Markets are expecting the Japan’s trade deficit to come in at 594bn Yen.    

                  

Trade

Stocks are rising and there appears to be nothing on the horizon this week to reverse the trend. The Yen is declining, however, we have Japan’s merchandise trade report and the Bank of Japan monetary policy announcement that could temporarily halt the decline in the Yen.