Royalmaxbrokers: America Grows Contrary to Macrostatistics

US blue chips completed the fourth consecutive session of growth, while the high-tech NASDAQ showed the best weekly dynamics in almost 3 months. According to RoyalMaxBrokers, this was achieved mainly due to a series of strong corporate reports. The index of the broad market S & P500 for the week added 1.8%, again breaking the psychological mark of 1400 points. Bidding in European stocks also took place in a positive light: the session's average growth exceeded 0.6%.

According to RoyalMaxBrokers, even the unconvincing report on US GDP for the first quarter, according to which the growth rates of the world's first economy fell to 2.2%, was not able to prevent a steady climb of shares, which is significantly lower than the consensus forecast of 2.5%, as well as data for the previous quarter (3.0 %%). According to the report of the Ministry of Trade , the slowdown is primarily due to a reduction in private investment in inventories and a drop in investment in fixed assets by non-residents. The reduction in government spending by 3.0% played a significant role. The positive factor for the economy is a significant increase in consumer spending, which increased by 2.9%, demonstrating the strongest growth since the 4th quarter of 2010.

The decision of the Bank of Japan to increase the quantitative easing program by another 5 trillion yen justified the market's expectations. However, the high predictability of this step did not lead to the desired effect in the foreign exchange market: the pair USD / JPY fell again below the level of 80.50, as well as the Nikkei stock index, which ended the session losing 0.43%. "The market still has an abundance of short positions on the yen, and until the next meeting of the Bank of Japan there are four weeks. I expect that the pair USD / JPY will be stuck at this level and it will be difficult for it to rise higher in the short term, "commented Andrew Cox of Citigroup . It should be added that yesterday the pair failed to break through the resistance of the descending channel, therefore RoyalMaxBrokers believes that the downward pressure is maintained.

Among the defining news of the upcoming week is the European Central Bank meeting and it is expected that the ECB will leave interest rates unchanged. Nevertheless, a more cautious assessment of the prospects for the euro-zone economy is likely, which shows clear signs of a recession. Among the macroeconomic data of the upcoming week will be a report on the GDP of Spain for the first quarter. According to forecasts, he will point to a return to the recession. In such conditions, we can expect more significant and pronounced movements in the EUR / USD currency pair, which for the week rose within 70 points.