• Dollar keeps steadier so far on the day, eyes on US retail sales later
• US retail sales gains more attention as Japan eyes big data to intervene
• BOJ data suggests Japan also intervened in the FX market on 12 July
• Eurozone May trade balance €13.9 billion vs €15.0 billion prior
• Germany July ZEW survey current conditions -68.9 vs -74.5 expected
• 10-year Treasury yields erase the jump higher from yesterday
• Italy June final CPI +0.8% vs +0.8% y/y prelim
• European stocks hold lower in the opening stages today
• What are the main events for today?
• Geopolitics trumps higher inflation as top tail risk in latest BofA fund manager survey
• Eurostoxx futures -0.4% in early European trading
• FX option expiries for 16 July 10am New York cut
• A couple of light releases to move things along in European trading today

It was an
uneventful European session with no central bank speaker and just the German
ZEW survey as the main highlight. The survey recorded the first decline in 2024
due to a bigger than expected fall in German exports in May, the political
uncertainty in France and the lack of clarity regarding the future monetary
policy by the ECB.

The index
has been climbing steadily, so a minor pullback isn’t something to be concerned
about. The situation indicator for the Eurozone, on the other hand, changed
only marginally climbing 2.5 points to a new reading of minus 36.1 points.

In the
markets, the major currencies are little changed with the US Dollar flat on the
day. Treasury yields erased yesterday’s gains. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq
are mostly flat while the Russell 2000 continues to outperform.

Gold is
having another good day as it’s up 0.80% while crude oil is going for the third
consecutive negative day being down 1.40%. Bitcoin was down almost 4.0% at some
point but has recovered half the losses and it looks like it has further legs
to the upside.

The focus
will now switch to the Canadian CPI and US Retail Sales data both due in an hour.

This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at www.forexlive.com.