The fears about the global growth of inflation are still extremely high, and in theory, any data indicating a stabilization of the situation, and especially a decrease in inflation, should be perceived by investors as an exceptionally positive signal. However, the pound ignored the UK inflation data, which slowed down from 2.5% to 2.0%, despite the fact that a decline was predicted to only 2.4%. In this case, the situation with inflation in the UK is not much better than in the US. Unfortunately, the market ignored the European statistics again. This has been recently happening more and more often.

Inflation (UK):

Although the market ignored the data on European inflation, it was not surprising. There is no doubt that inflation rose from 1.9% to 2.2%, but investors have known this since the publication of the preliminary estimate. Therefore, the totals didn't show anything new.

Inflation (Europe):

On the other hand, the publication of the text of the minutes of the meeting of the Federal Committee on Open Market Operations caused a rapid revival and set the market in motion. Initially, the US dollar even became somewhat cheaper, but it immediately returned almost to the previous values, and after a while, its steady strengthening began during the Asian session. The reason for such fluctuation lies solely in the fate of the quantitative easing program. The initial weakening of the dollar is caused by the fact that there are no direct and specific decisions on this issue in the text of the minutes. However, this is a deceptive impression, since the American regulator actually still intends to submit for consideration the issue of curtailing the program in the near future. The issue will be submitted for consideration in September. And apparently, the majority of the members of the board of the Federal Reserve System may vote for its gradual winding down. This is nothing but a tightening of monetary policy, which is the reason for the growth of the US dollar.

Today, the US currency may receive support in the form of labor market data. The situation on which continues to improve. In particular, the number of initial applications for unemployment benefits is expected to fall by 15 thousand, and repeated applications by as much as 116 thousand. It can be recalled here the recent words of Neel Kashkari that before thinking about curtailing the quantitative easing program, it would be worth getting stronger data on the labor market than the latest report of the United States Department of Labor showed.

So, judging by the figures, the number of applications for unemployment benefits, especially repeated ones, is already close to normal values. Previously, the number of repeated applications was slightly less than now. Therefore, nothing prevents the Federal Reserve System from starting to wind down the quantitative easing program.

The number of re-claims for unemployment benefits (United States):

The EUR/USD pair managed to update this year's local low during a sharp decline. The downward cycle from the beginning of June is extended to new price levels. This may lead to a primary decline towards the level of 1.1600, followed by an increase in the volume of short positions.

Following its European counterpart, the GBP/USD pair has a downward cycle. The pound's weakening since August started is just over 200 points. If sellers are in the mood, further growth in the volume of short positions towards the range of 1.3660-1.3580 is not excluded.