ForexLive European FX news wrap: A breather before US retail sales more Trump headlines

February 14, 2025 at 12:17PM
Headlines:

EU says Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are a step in the wrong direction

What are the main events for today?

Eurozone Q4 preliminary GDP +0.1% vs 0.0% q/q expected

Germany January wholesale price index +0.9% vs +0.1% m/m prior

Spain January final CPI +2.9% vs +3.0% y/y prelim

Switzerland January producer and import prices +0.1% vs 0.0% m/m prior

China January M2 money supply +7.0% vs +7.2% y/y expected

China president Xi set to chair symposium with business leaders next week – report

Markets:

NZD leads, EUR lags on the day

European equities mixed; S&P 500 futures down 0.1%

US 10-year yields up 1.4 bps to 4.538%

Gold flat at $2,929.33

WTI crude up 0.6% to $71.74

Bitcoin up 0.3% to $96,777

It was another quieter session in Europe as broader markets are catching their breath before the next flurry of headlines in the US session later.

Coming up, we’ll have the US retail sales data and surely more Trump headlines even after his reciprocal tariffs announcement yesterday.

The dollar fell as markets faded the tariffs move but in European trading today, there wasn’t much follow through. The greenback is keeping mostly little changed and in tighter ranges, just slightly lower against the antipodeans.

Besides that, there wasn’t too much else to scrutinise in terms of movement among major currencies. But from a technical standpoint, there are some key levels in play that could take the dollar down on softer data. That said, even with a stronger retail sales report later, it’s hard to see that meaningfully changing the Fed outlook at the moment.

As such, the dollar’s upside is most certainly capped and if the last few days is anything to go by, it is that this is a market that’s no longer fearful of tariffs. That’s another upside taken away for the greenback.

In other markets, equities are more tentative but it’s still early in the day. Wall Street is a different beast altogether and we’ll see how investors want to position themselves before the weekend. But considering the circumstances, we’re not too far away from fresh record highs again and that’s a big win for US stocks.

In Europe, the positive momentum is encountering a breather today – at least for the DAX – but at the balance we are still seeing equities continuing to nudge higher. That’s seven weeks of winning for European stocks now.

Speaking of winning streaks, gold is also poised to secure yet another winning week on the books. That will also see the precious metal gain in each of the last seven weeks too, with eyes on $3,000 next.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.