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As the doors close on a rather turbulent 2015, the year 2016 gets off to an active start on Monday, with the first trading day of the year hardly offering a cure for a New Year hangover or the Fed-induced headache.
Monday 4th January gets off to a start in Asia, where Japan and China release fresh numbers on purchasing managers indices (PMI) for their manufacturing sectors in December. For both Asian giants the figures are expected to stay pretty much unchanged.
We then have Turkey's consumer price inflation (08:00 UTC), which is expected to drop significantly month-on-month (0.7% to 0.1%), while posting year-on-year growth (8.1% to 8.5%).
This is swiftly followed by the set of Markit PMI surveys for Europe's manufacturing sectors in December (08:15-09:00 UTC), with positive factory activity expected in Spain, Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany and the EU as a whole.
The UK follows suit a half hour later (09:30 UTC), releasing its own manufacturing data for December, which, like the European numbers, are expected to show continued expansion for Britain's factories. A mild increase from 52.7 to to 52.9 is projected, so little forex rate impact is likely. Inflation figures are then due in the afternoon (13:00 UTC) from Europe's powerhouse Germany, which releases its CPI numbers for December, with the expectation of a 0.2% acceleration month-on-month, while year-on-year it should increase from 0.4% in November to 0.6%.
The manufacturing PMI trend continues into the US session, as Markit's gauge of the world's number-one economy's factory activity is expected to remain in expansion (preliminary print of 51.3). A second opinion comes 15 minutes later with the ISM Manufacturing survey, which is expected to remain in contraction at 49.0, after slipping to 48.6 in November.
Later in the evening (22:30 UTC), entertainment will be provided by FOMC member and Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams, who is due to speak on Macro prudential Policy Implementation. As always, prominent policymakers' speeches have the potential to impact Forex markets, and this will be especially true if Williams brings any new information about the pace of monetary tightening in 2016.
Overall, Monday's start to the New Year should shake markets out of bed, with a rich calendar of indicators, while the impact from turbulent commodities will also spice up the day.
