Less than one month was required for Janet Yellen in her new positions as the Fed Chairman to win her first serious battle, supporting the case she is the right person to replace Ben Bernanke.
The single currency continued its upside movement on Monday, with the EUR/USD pair moving closer to this year's high, following slightly stronger-than-expected Europe's inflation data and improved sentiment across German companies.
The Euro and the greenback were two the most attractive currencies for investors last week, with such crosses like EUR/SEK, USD/SEK, USD/RUB and EUR/CAD soaring 1.93%, 1.89%, 1.75% and 1.64% over the last five trading days.
The USD/CAD currency pair fell to 1.1130 after the release of the stronger-than-expected inflation data in Canada, while disappointing retail figures were not able to stop loonie's appreciation.
Minutes from the latest BoJ meeting showed the central bank is not going to rule out the possibility of early additional stimulus if the domestic economy show signs of stumbling.
Retail sales are considered to be highly volatile, hence, the figure should differ significantly from the expected value in order to have a strong market impact, even though retail sales is a primary gauge of consumer spending, which represents the majority of overall economic activity.
Disappointing data does not have any influence on the Federal Reserve.
Rating Services Standard & Poor's rating agency trimmed Ukraine's sovereign credit rating to ‘CCC' also giving the negative outlook, cutting its from the stable outlook and ‘B-' rating.
Earlier this year RBNZ Governor Wheeler reiterated his pledge to start increasing interest rates soon, also mentioning he requires more information in order to asses the economy's outlook in March, bolstering the case of March's rate hike.
There are more and more concerns now the world's third largest economy will be dragged into another recession by the April's consumption tax hike that will weigh on domestic demand.
It seems that U.K. politicians and policymakers are having different views on the domestic economy.
The world's largest economy has been reporting weak data from practically all sectors of the economy, including labour and housing markets.
Wednesday's disappointing news from the United States were unable to get either side of the most traded currency pair moving, while the pair was poised to end the week above 1.37.
Earlier this week Australian policymakers signalled they are getting more confident in the nation's future economic performance, saying weaker Aussie is contributing to growth.
It seems that Japanese policymaker have found a new low-cost way to look like they are easing further their monetary policy without making any bold steps.
The U.K. economy is currently suffering from turbulent economic conditions even despite a recent upswing in growth last year.
The Federal Reserve will keep its monetary policy accommodative until unemployment fall to around 6.5%. Wait, have we heard something similar from the BoE already?
Central banks all over the world are getting more and more predictable as there were no surprises from policymakers so far this year.
Comments from Australian policymakers can sound strange for some, taking into account weak performance by a resource-rich economy during the last couple of months.
Japan's central bank offered no surprises to markets this time, leaving its unprecedented stimulus programme unchanged ahead of a looming tax hike a couple of months later, while decided to extend its loan programmes that were due to expire soon.
The U.K. economy has been highly volatile during the several months. After a rapid expansion and hawkish comments it is getting obvious the growth is loosing some of its steam.
Last week the first testimony by Janet Yellen as the Chairman of the Fed confirmed that interventionist Keynesian policies at the U.S. Federal Reserve are considered to be well-entrenched and still far from being over.
German ZEW Economic Sentiment usually has a strong market impact, as it is a leading indicator of economic health.
The NZD/USD currency pair is still trading in boundaries of a triangle pattern that was formed in the middle of April.