UK Retail Sales m/m 12/17/09

4:30am (NY Time) UK Retail Sales   Forecast 0.5%   Previous 0.4%
ACTION: GBP/USD         BUY 1.1%       SELL -0.1%

We’ll be focusing on the Retail Sales release today, which is a direct measurement of consumer activities at the retail levels.  A higher release is good for the economy, thus, better for its currency; a lower release is considered negative for the economy and not good for its currency.  Retail Sales make up a substantial part of the GDP, and the effect of this release could be very profound given the low liquidity condition of the market.

Our tradable deviation or surprise factor for UK Retail Sales is 0.6% on the Headline number. If our deviation is hit, we can expect the market to move at least 50 pips within the hour, with the historical accuracy of 72%.  If we do not get at a minimum of 0.6% in deviation or difference from the expectation, we will not take a trade, as the release figure might not be safe enough for a successful trade based on historical data…  With the recent USD strength, I’ll take extra precautions to go against the trend.

As always, I’ll post the video of the trade (in the event I take a trade) back in this post.  Hopefully, we’ll get a strong release.