ECB, jobless claims, US stimulus, Brexit and oil stocks

In terms of news, yesterday was a pretty busy day. And although the world has not turned upside down at the end of the day, it is still worth analyzing what was happening.

The main event of the day is the ECB meeting and its decision on the parameters of monetary policy. That is, the markets did not expect any changes, but the latest inflation data pushed the Central Bank to at least additional comments.

The parameters of monetary policy were left unchanged. At the same time, the ECB left its own forecasts for economic growth in Europe unchanged. Let us remind, on Wednesday Bloomberg disseminated information that the ECB may improve its outlook.

The main positive for the euro was the lack of comments on the use of regulation of the euro exchange rate as one of the instruments of monetary policy. Many feared that the ECB might devalue the euro in order to unwind the inflationary spiral. To sum up, the universe of the euro has not changed by and large.

Weekly data on jobless claims traditionally aroused increased interest among financial market participants yesterday. This is understandable - they need a signal that the economy is recovering and has not fallen into a depression. Initial and continuing claims came out worse than expected and showed that the labor market continues to experience problems.

In addition, the day for buyers in the US stock market was darkened by a lack of progress between Republicans and Democrats on a new stimulus package for the US economy. What's more, Democrats yesterday flunked a vote on the Republican stimulus package.

The day turned out to be extremely gloomy for the pound, as the next round of Brexit talks failed.

Meanwhile, the situation on the oil market remains tense and rather uncertain. According to API data, US oil reserves increased by almost 3 million barrels over the week. Official figures from EIA showed an increase of 2 million barrels. This signal is definitely negative for buyers in the oil market.