The US dollar succeeded in stabilizing higher than an important support at the end of the third quarter of 2017, as the dollar index rose from 92.40 after it continued its decline since the end of the first quarter of the year, reaching the lowest level since January 2015 at 90.97.
With the first week of the last quarter of this year, the markets are looking for a number of economic data and events this week. The beginning of the week was particularly flustered with the situation in Spain's Catalonia region and the desire for independence after Sunday's referendum and the Spanish government tried to prevent it in various ways.
Below is a look at the most important markets awaiting this week's trading:
US Employment Data
As usual, markets wait on the first Friday of every month for labor market data in the US, which has a sign of overall economic improvement and thus helps the Federal Reserve to decide to raise interest rates. Employment data were somewhat disappointing in August with 156K jobs and now it is expected to add only 88,000 jobs in September, may be due to the recent hurricanes. Wages are expected to rise by 0.3% in September and unemployment will stabilize at 4.4%. Expectations have recently been raised that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December and next Friday's data could play a role.
Australian Interest Rate Decision
Early in the morning on Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia is due to announce its interest rate decision and it is expected to remain unchanged at 1.50%. The Australian Reserve is also expected to remain neutral as in the recent period in which Philippe Lowe, The Reserve Bank of Australia confirmed on that interest rates unchanged for a period of time. The markets will monitor the Bank's view of the Australian dollar and its impact on the economy as it expressed earlier dissatisfaction with the value of the current exchange rate.
Service sector data in the UK
The UK Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) is due to be released on Wednesday and is expected to expand by 53.3 points from 53.2 in August. The British service sector is the largest sector contributing to the economy in general.
ECB monetary policy meeting accounts
The minutes of the ECB's recent meeting, in which interest rates and policy are kept unchanged, are expected to be released. Markets are waiting for any hints on monetary policy decision-making after the euro-zone economy showed remarkable recovery in recent times.
Canadian Employment Data
Canada's labor market is moving very well through 2017, the economy added 22.2K jobs in August and unemployment fell to 6.2%. We expect to see a continuation of this improvement in September, especially as we see the Bank of Canada raise rates twice so far through This year.
