So the day has arrived where investors around the world will learn if the US Federal Reserve is to lift interest rates for the first time in almost a decade. While the probability that a hike will take place is high, it is by no means a certainty with the continued slump in oil prices, uninspiring global economic data and concerns over inflation still weighing on the minds of policy makers.

Overnight in the US and this morning in Asia, sentiment lifted as stock markets rallied ahead of tonight’s announcement. Should we see a rate hike, it would signal the beginning of the end of a monetary policy that has supplied a tidal wave of liquidity to risk assets globally over recent years.

USD traded higher yesterday making large gains across the board, most notably against the GBP where the UK released less than inspiring consumer and producer price index data.

Oil & Gold remain under pressure, trading below intraday pivot levels despite modest gains yesterday.

As the excitement build towards tonights FOMC announcement (19:00 GMT), we have a barage of data in the build up that should make today, one of the most exciting and volatile days of the year providing traders with many opportunities.

We start off with manufacturing PMI data from across the Eurozone released between 08:00 – 09:00 GMT, followed by average earnings and claimant count data from the UK at 09:30 GMT to round off the mornings excitement. In the afternoon, building permits and housing starts at 13:30 GMT gets the ball rolling followed by manuafacturing PMI at 14:45 GMT. Oil inventories rounds off the afternoon at 15:30 GMT where we can all take a breather ahead of the big one at 19:00 GMT.

Traders should consider prudent risk management and have sufficient liquidity to compensate for extreme price fluctuations and consider the use of take profit and stop loss. Easy forex would like to remind its clients of its price promise with guaranteed stops on take profits and stop losses and free negative balance correction.