| Time | Country | Event | Period | Previous value | Forecast | Actual |
|---|
| 05:00 | Japan | Consumer Confidence | March | 39.1 | 40 | 39.5 |
EUR traded mixed against other major currencies in the European session on Tuesday as investors prepared for the European Central Banks policy meeting later this week.
The single European currency rose versus JPY and USD, fell versus GBP, CHF and AUD, and changed little versus CAD.
The ECB will hold its April meeting on Thursday, and market participants are expecting no change to interest rates and a reiteration that the central bank’s future policy decisions will be data-dependent. However, some investors are waiting for more explicit signals from the ECB of a likely rate cut in June. Overall, markets price in at least three rate cuts of 25 basis points for 2024.
Meanwhile, investors digest the ECB’s latest bank lending survey (BLS), which revealed that the Eurozone’s banks slightly tightened their credit standards for loans or credit lines to enterprises in the first quarter of 2024, tightened further credit standards for consumer credit and other lending to households but eased their credit standards for loans to households for house purchases for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2021.
The BLS also showed a substantial decline in demand from firms for loans or drawing of credit lines in the three months to March, a small drop in demand for housing loans, and a broadly stable demand for consumer credit and other lending to households.