BoE, German CPI and US GDP amongst market movers today – Danske Bank

Analysts at Danske Bank outlined Thursday's important releases and offered a brief overview of the key event risk – the highly anticipated BoE monetary policy decision.

Key Quotes:

“Today's highlight will be the Bank of England's (BoE) monetary policy announcement at 13:00 CET. Despite a few economic data releases that came out stronger than expected, we still expect the BoE to cut the Bank Rate by 25bp, a view we have held since November. Despite slightly stronger data, the economy remains weak overall due to high uncertainty on Brexit. However, it is likely to be a close call, which is also reflected in market pricing, as investors are pricing a 45% probability of a cut, leaving some upside in EUR/GBP if we are right in our call.”

“In Europe we get a range of interesting data releases on the state of the labour market in end-2019 as well as the final string of leading indicators for January with the Commission's economic confidence indicator. Employment growth has slowed recently, but in light of the dynamic service sector, we do not expect to see a marked deterioration in the European labour market. German inflation figures for January meanwhile are expected to show another increase in the headline rate driven by energy prices.”

“Later in the day, we expect US GDP figures to reveal decent growth of around 2% in Q4 19, with consumer spending remaining the key driver of growth.”