EUR/USD has started the week with gains, after losing close to 1.0% last week. On Monday, the pair is trading at 1.1162, up 0.20% on the day. On the fundamentals front, there are no major German or eurozone events. The U.S. will release Core PCE Price Index and Personal Spending for February and March. The markets are expecting a strong gain of 0.7% for Personal Spending in March. On Tuesday, Germany releases CPI and the eueozone posts GDP. In the U.S., the highlights are Chicago PMI and CB Consumer Confidence.
In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has led his Socialist party to victory, but he will have to share the spoils in order to form a new government. The Socialists won 123 seats of the 350 seats in Congress, and should be able to form a stable coalition in the next few weeks. The far-right VOX party made gains and will enter parliament, but investors seem pleased with the results, which should ensure stability for the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy.
In the U.S, economic data sparkled late in the week, sending EUR/USD to lower levels. Durable goods orders climbed 2.7%, crushing the estimate of 0.7%. Core durable goods orders gained 0.4%, marking a 9-month high. This was followed by an initial GDP release of 3.2% in Q1, well above the estimate of 2.2%. This was much stronger than Final GDP for Q4, which came in at 2.2%.
