Friday started off in the morning session with Germany’s balance of trade. Noticing a decline larger than expected month-on-month. In its previous month, December 2025, Germany recorded a level of 17.2b. Forecasts for January were set at 16.5b, in reality we saw an unexpected fall down to 13.1b. The difference from forecast to its actual figures were driven by slow exports out of Germany to other EU countries and the US. Exports fell by 2.5% to its previous month, which came as a surprise. Imports, in particularly from China, were forecasted to rise with the Chinese New Year coming up and businesses covering inventory over a longer period.
Ahead of today there is two economic data releases we will follow closely. First out at 10am we have European retail sales month-on-month. In the last quarter, Q4 2025, European retail sales showed stagnating signs. Forecast for today is a small uprise from 0% to 0.1%, with hopes that it will outperform expectations as figures are from the Christmas period when we generally see an uplift of foot traffic for the retail sector.
Later in the afternoon, at 1.30pm to be precise we have non-farm payroll released from the US. Jobs data in the US has been restrained in the recent months and not showed the uplift they’re wishing for. Forecasts for today don’t look much more promising. 60k expected new created jobs, would be a fallback of 4k to last month when the recorded 64k new jobs. January in general tends to be a poor performing month for new opportunities, with temp jobs over the Christmas period gone and businesses holding off recruitment. This can lead to volatility in the afternoon session for USD-pairs. If figures would come out stronger than expected we’re likely to see the continuing USD strength that’s taken place this week. On the contrary, poor figures could stall the USD gains and see the likes of GBP and EUR recover.
GBP/EUR 1.1501 GBP/USD 1.3398 GBP/AED 4.9235
GBP/AUD 2.0060 GBP/CHF 1.0716 GBP/CAD 1.8593
GBP/NZD 2.3394 EUR/USD 1.1634 GBP/ZAR 22.1944