An uneventful day

It was very quiet in markets yesterday. The main currency pairs did little or nothing really – with the euro still hovering around the $1.13 level against the dollar and trading at just over 86p against sterling – and core bond yields were largely unchanged, while European stocks ended just marginally higher on the day and US stocks marginally lower

Fed member Evans says he can see interest rates in the US remaining unchanged right through to autumn 2020, though he acknowledged a cut might be appropriate if core – or underlying – inflation, which has eased recently, was to drift down further. His colleague, Rosengren, indicated he also is happy to keep interest rates on hold

The ECB’s Villeroy says the Governing Council is convinced “that as a whole (subzero) interest rates are positive” for the economy, though adds that “if there are any (adverse) side effects on bank intermediation we could study what we call mitigating measures, if needed”

With Parliament in recess it’s quieter on the Brexit front, so there might be a bit more focus on today’s latest labour market report in the UK. Employment was surprisingly strong in the three months to January and the unemployment rate fell to a fresh cycle low of 3.9%. The latter is expected to have remained at 3.9% in the three months to February, according to the consensus, while the annual rate of earnings growth is expected to have ticked up a little further to 3.5%

Other data due today include Euro area construction output and industrial production in the US