Last Friday all eyes were on the advanced GDP reading from the US, where the results have shown that the United States economy had accelerated in the 2nd quarter, where the seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 4.1% in the period April-June was almost double the expansion we have seen in the first quarter of the year, which was 2.2%. In addition, President Trump has predicted ahead of the news release, that the US economy will be seen as in ‘terrific’ shape, which obviously did come true.  

US-China trade war is affecting the yuan.
On Friday Reuters had reported on the policy debate of China, as how to best cope with the slowing growth, where analysts have commended the Chinese authorities to boost fiscal stimulus during the rising risk of the trade conflict with the United States. Namely, what was requested is to adjust the fiscal policy and implement loosening of financial regulations, as it is viewed that the monetary policy would not be able to cope with the corporate funding challenges on its own, therefore adjustment of fiscal and regulatory polices is required.

Everyday, you make a lot of personal and financial decisions that shape your financial life. Seven days a week, twelve months a year, you choose how to spend, save, and share your money, time, and effort on people, things, and activities that matter to you. But how often do you think about the risks associated with the personal and financial decisions you make? In this article, you will discover a number of risks involved in making your personal and financial decisions and explore what actions you can take to manage them.

Amongst the important macro-economic news releases yesterday, the first results came from Australia and had pleasantly surprised the economists, beating their expectations by surging more than triple in June, where 50,900 positions were added compared to the expected 16,7000. This was the highest monthly gain since November last year. The unemployment rate remained at 5.4% as expected, assumed because more people went seeking for a job. It is not expected that the Reserve Bank of Australia will increase the interest rates in the near future due to the labor supply still expanding to meet the demand.

The EUR/USD is trading just north of the 1.1700 major technical level ahead of a Tuesday that will see market focus shift to upcoming US events with a thin calendar slated for the European session. There were some relevant macroeconomic news coming from both shores of the Atlantic, although they had little saying on price action. In the EU, the goods trade balance surplus shrunk in May to €16.5B amid a fall in exports combined with an increase in imports. The US released June retail sales, which were up by 0.5% as expected, while the control group reading remained pat.

Euro rises as US Dollar eases on the day of Trump-Putin meeting. The risk sentiment eased on Monday with the Euro trading slightly higher on Monday against the US Dollar at around 1.1700 before the high profile Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki. After hitting its best level since early July, the US Dollar witnessed some profit-taking on Friday following a setback from import prices and consumer confidence data.

The Non-Farm Payroll (NFP) Report is a key economic indicator for the United States. It is intended to represent the total number of paid workers in the U.S., minus Farm Employees, Government Employees, Private Household Employees and Employees of Nonprofit Organizations. The non-farm payroll report causes one of the consistently largest rate movements of any news announcement in the forex market.

On Friday, the most anticipated macro-economic news release were the non-farm employment change and the unemployment rate. The NFP rose by 213k in the previous month, while the consensus estimate was creation of 195k jobs. The jobless rate came with an unexpected result where it rose to 4.0% from 3.8%, thus missed the expectation that it would remain at the same level, while wage inflation grew 2.7% on an annualized basis in June.