Volatility increases as UK election nears

USD - CB Consumer Confidence: 117.9
NZD - RBNZ Financial Stability Report
GBP - GfK Consumer Confidence: -5

With the UK general election just over a week away, the race for Downing Street is heating up. Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, yesterday appeared on Woman’s Hour where he was unable to say how much Labour’s free childcare plan would cost, answering with only ‘it will cost…it will obviously cost a lot to do so.’ Also yesterday, the Scottish National Party launched its manifesto, focusing on giving the Scottish a vote of independence at the end of the Brexit process as well as increasing UK taxes to promote growth in Scotland.

Across the pond, Donald Trump hit back at Angela Merkel’s latest comments about the unreliability of the US as a trading partner. In his usual form of communication, Trump tweeted that the US have a ‘massive’ trade deficit with Germany and warned ‘this will change’. Merkel said over the weekend that Germany can no longer rely on the US under Mr Trump’s presidency. If this feud continues we could see a flock to the safe haven currencies as the relationship between the Eurozone’s powerhouse; Germany and the US begins to show cracks.

CAD - GDP m/m
AUD - Private Capital Expenditure q/q
AUD - Retail Sales m/m

Today’s main focus will be on the Eurozone with a series of data releases. Germany will be releasing their retail sales figure along with their unemployment change. From France, their preliminary CPI and from Italy their monthly unemployment rate along with CPI inflation. The Eurozone will also post core CPI inflation flash estimate.

Bullish data from the Eurozone today could see the Euro continue to strengthen. In the US, FOMC member Robert Kaplan is speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York with a question session to follow.