European releases overnight:

January                                            Forecast     Actual
Italian Industrial Production     (MoM)     +0.6%     +1.3%
Italian Industrial Production      (YoY)     - 2.7%     +0.5%
U.K. Industrial Production        (MoM)     +0.1%     - 0.1%
U.K. Industrial Production         (YoY)     +0.5%     +0.4%
U.K. Manufacturing Production  (MoM)     +0.1%     +0.4%
U.K. Manufacturing Production   (YoY)     +0.1%     +0.6%

February
U.K. PPI: Input                      (MoM)      +1.6%     +1.7%
U.K. PPI: Input                       (YoY)      18.3%      19.4%
U.K. PPI: Output                    (MoM)      +0.6%     +0.3%
U.K. PPI: Output                     (YoY)      +6.0%     +5.7%

March
Euro-zone Sentix Investor Confidence        2.70        0.40

States releases overnight:

January
U.S. Wholesale Inventories     (MoM)      +0.5%      +0.8%

There were quite a few releases overnight but none really that would grab the market by the neck and push rates in any direction. The European industrial numbers, with the exception of the U.K. were really quite good given the depression running into this year.

It still hasn’t provided any comfort for investors as Sentix reported a collapse in European investor confidence by 2.3 points to 0.40. With the uncertainty over the reach of the credit crisis and the potential unreported writedowns from banks and the squeeze on hedge funds there is every reason for investors to be concerned.

There were even rumors that HSBC are pondering a bid for Societe Generale and later on the bidder was changed to Barclays which highlights how the unpredictable becomes possible.

Tricher renewed the pressure on the States to do something about the weak Dollar. “We're concerned about excessive exchange-rate moves in the present circumstances,” he said.

However, all in all there was nothing really to push the Dollar strongly in either direction and this is helping the pullback scenario. The Dollar has seen sharp losses over the past month with very little correction and running through to after Easter the chances are that the market will take a breather.

Given the excessively bearish sentiment the first few steps higher will be the slowest. There may be even a small risk of minor new lows but the spark has been taken away from the market for the moment and gradually over this week and probably next there is likely to be a gradual recovery.

This should eventually lead into new lows in April.

More later once the daily analysis has been done…

The following are economic releases from Asia due today:

Japan February Machine Tool Orders (F)  (YoY)
 
Australia
January Home Loans   (MoM) +1.0%
January Investment Lending  
February ANZ Job Advertisements 

See Also

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