The week ahead: December 16-22
A look at what’s coming up on the East Coast and around the world. This week, that includes a Fed meeting, Detroit bankruptcy hearings and the end of the VW ‘bus.’
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- James Bullard, President of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, speaks during an interview with Reuters in an August file photo. Remarks last week from Bullard voicing support for a “small taper” were unexpected. He joined a chorus of more-hawkish officials, including two on Monday, who also want to begin trimming the central bank’s $85 billion per month asset-purchase pace. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder/Files)
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- People protest outside the U.S. Courthouse where federal bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes is overseeing Detroit’s bankruptcy. Rhodes last week scheduled a hearing for Monday, December 16, in order to hear appeals in the case. (File photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
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- Tourists walk up to the National Museum of the American Indian in a Getty Images file photo. The federal government plans to release a 2010 Census American Indian and Alaska Native data package on Thursday, Dec. 19th. (Mark Wilson, Getty Images)
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- Olie Williams of Bonhams displays a working mould for the first R2D2 Star Wars character in central London, December 12, 2013. The mould, is expected to fetch between £6000-£8000 ($9,780-$13,040), when it goes under the hammer on December 18. REUTERS/Andrew Winning
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- People walk past a closed branch of Blockbuster in Wallasey, northwest England, on December 12, 2013. Blockbuster is to shut down all its remaining stores within days after administrators were unable to find a buyer for the rental and DVD chain. (PAUL ELLIS/AFP/Getty Images)
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- Cars drive past a street lined with decorative lights ahead of National Day celebrations in Riffa, south of Manama December 11, 2012. Bahrain will celebrate its 42nd National Day on Monday, December 16. (REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed)
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- In this photograph taken on December 12, 2013, Indian national Puneet Puneet (C) hides his face while being transported in a police vehicle from the Patiala House courts in New Delhi. An Indian man who fled Australia after killing a teenager while drink driving and speeding in Melbourne was on December 13, 2013 sent to prison as a court set his extradition hearing for this week. (MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images file photo)
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- Fishing vessels loaded with pots will become a more common site this week on the West Coast: Oregon’s commercial Dungeness crab season is scheduled to open Monday, December 16. (Reuters file photo by Robert Galbraith)
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- The US Senate will vote next week on the new budget deal and Janet Yellen’s nomination to lead the Federal Reserve, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said December 13, 2013. “On Tuesday, we’ll begin consideration of the budget. On Wednesday, the defense bill, and after that we’ll address further nominations, of which the most important one is Janet Yellen,” Reid said on the Senate floor. (File photo by Brendan Smialowski – AFP/Getty Images)
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- This handout picture released on August 8, 2013 by the European Space Agency (ESA) shows an artist impression of Gaia. Gaia, which will be launched on December 19, is an ambitious mission to chart a three-dimensional map of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, in the process revealing the composition, formation and evolution of the Galaxy. Gaia will provide unprecedented positional and radial velocity measurements with the accuracies needed to produce a stereoscopic and kinematic census of about one billion stars in our Galaxy and throughout the Local Group.
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- Jeremy Ross of the Detroit Lions returns a punt in the fourth quarter against the Philadelphia Eagles on December 8. The Ravens play the Lions Monday night. Photo by Elsa/Getty Images
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- London’s Guardian newspaper has reported that a new set of Beatles “bootleg” recordings will be released December 17.
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- Musician Goran Bregovic plays guitar surrounded by Bosnian people from the Roma community in Sarajevo, on December 10, 2013. Bregovic was welcomed in the community during his visit, marking the begining of his campaign to establish Roma cultural foundation “Gorica.” Bregovic also prepares a gala concert in his hometown on December 19, with aim to gather starter funds for the foundation. The intent behind stablishing the Roma foundation, according to Bregovic, is to promote Roma culture and help bring the Roma people out of the margins of local society in Bosnia. ELVIS BARUKCIC/AFP/Getty Images
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- Bernard Randall, a retired British man, poses at the Entebbe Chief Magistrates Court on December 4, 2013. Randall is facing charges of trafficking obscene publications after police found private pictures of him having sex with another man. Randall, 65, pleaded not guilty at his initial hearing in October to the charges, which were brought after his laptop was stolen and films on the computer were handed to a Ugandan tabloid newspaper. The case was then adjourned for a second time until December 16. ISAAC KASAMANI – AFP/Getty Images
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- James Holmes appears in court at the Arapahoe County Justice Center in this July 23, 2012 file photo in Centennial, Colorado. A US judge on November 21, 2013 indefinitely postponed a planned February start date for the trial of James Holmes, accused of killing 12 people in a massacre at a Colorado movie theater last year. Judge Carlos Samour ordered the delay after prosecutors called for alleged gunman James Holmes to undergo another mental evaluation to determine whether he was insane at the time of the mass shooting in July last year. “I’m not going to rush through any issue,” the Arapahoe County District Court judge said, scheduling new hearings in the case for December 17-18 according to the Denver Post. “I want to give every (legal) motion as much attention as they deserve,” the newspaper cited him as saying. Holmes is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 70 people when he allegedly opened fire last July in a packed midnight screening of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” in the Colorado town of Aurora, outside Denver. RJ SANGOSTI – AFP/Getty Images
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- German Chancellor Angela Merkel awaits President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of Mali (not pictured) in front of a Christmas tree upon Keita’s arrival at the Chancellery on December 11, 2013 in Berlin, Germany. Merkel will likely be confirmed for another term as chancellor next week following the vote count of members of the German Social Democrats (SPD) over the future government coalition on the weekend. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
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- Bruce Wolczanski (L) and Don Ammann push a 1976 Volkswagen camper bus into a garage bay for repair at their McNab Foreign Car garage which specializes in restoring VW vehicles on December 12, 2013 in Pompano Beach, Florida. After 64 years, the German automaker announced it will finally stop producing the bus on December 20 in Brazil, the last country in the world to manufacture the van. Mr. Wolczanski said, ‘he feels bad that the car will no longer be made, but it will live on as people drag them out of barns, fields and backyards and restore them’. He sees the buses continue to have a cult following with more and more young people buying and restoring the buses, “they will never die”. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
LONDON (Reuters) – The euro rose against the dollar on Monday as data showed euro zone showed business activity picking up while uncertainty over the Federal Reserve’s stimulus kept investors wary of the U.S. currency.
The euro rose to $1.38 after a report on Monday showed German manufacturing activity and the Flash Euro zone Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) both beat forecasts in December.
The single currency had earlier dipped to around $1.3745 after separate data showed French private-sector activity unexpectedly slowed.
“Admittedly the French numbers were weak, but both the German manufacturing PMI and the composite euro zone numbers were better than expected and that is a relief for the euro,” said Jane Foley, senior currency strategist at Rabobank. “They could have been a lot worse.”
The data was not good enough to push the euro to the two-year high around $1.3833 it reached in October, and Foley said a lot would depend on what the Federal Reserve does this week.
The odds are the Fed’s rate-setting committee will make no major policy change when it meets on Tuesday and Wednesday. But most recent U.S. data suggest the Fed will begin to wind down its bond-buying program sooner rather than later.
However, U.S. Treasury bond yields eased on Monday, dragging the dollar index down 0.35 percent to 79.936
“If the Fed refrains from tapering we could see some pressure on the dollar,” said Alvin Tan, currency strategist at Societe Generale.
Highlighting nervousness in the market, euro/dollar one-month implied volatility, a gauge of how choppy a currency pair is likely to be, rose to its highest in five weeks at 7.11 percent.
The euro has risen in recent weeks, tracking higher euro zone money-market rates. As euro zone banks repay cheap loans to the European Central Bank, the ECB’s balance sheet should shrink, putting further upward pressure on rates. In contrast, the Fed, for now, and the Bank of Japan are printing vast sums, weakening the dollar and the yen.
Correction: An earlier version of this gallery misstated the Baltimore Ravens’ opponent. The Sun regrets the error.
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