The most important events on the economic calendar today are focused on central banks. In Europe, the ECB will release its latest economic bulletin, which investors are going to peruse in search of clues as to what the central bank might be planning. There will also be a retail sales report for December from the eurozone, with the forecast set at 0.3%.
In the United Kingdom, the Bank of England is going to have a big day at its monetary policy meeting today. It will be deciding whether to adjust the interest rate, with votes on cuts, hikes, or no changes. It will also have a chance to change its QE program, but no further easing is expected at the moment. The UK will also publish the construction PMI data for January today.
Typical of any Thursday, the United States will deliver its weekly batch of jobless claims reports. Continuing claims are supposed to have dropped slightly but still stay above 4 million, while the initial applications are set at 830,000. Considering that the coronavirus situation in the US is improving, a surprise in these reports will have a significant impact on the dollar and the markets broadly.
Speaking of the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of cases worldwide has surpassed 104.8 million. Daily infection rates globally seem to be noticeably lower than earlier in January. Of those cases, 27.1 million have been in the United States, 10.7 million in India, and 9.3 million in Brazil.
The situation is improving in Europe, though Spain and France are still reporting concerningly high numbers of new infections daily. Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands have been more successful at keeping the virus at bay for now.
In other news, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet with several important heads of financial institutions in the United States to discuss the recent short-squeeze events on the stock markets, and in particular the practice of short-selling employed by many hedge funds. The government has been following the issue and is considering introducing new regulation regarding this issue.
