 Hello and welcome to CMC Markets and this quick look at the week beginning the 20th of February and I think there's three events this week that will be of particular interest. First and foremost will be the latest minutes from the recent Fed meeting at the end of January. We've also got the second iteration of UKQ4 GDP and we've got the final reading of January European Union CPI. So we'll make a start with looking at the latest Fed minutes from the end of January. Now while no one expected a change of policy from US policymakers, I think these minutes are expected to deliver a much more hawkish tone in outlook in respect of the recent deliberations with a number of policymakers probably raising the prospect of multiple rate rises this year. The latest committee has got three new voting members this year in the form of Patrick Harker, the Philadelphia Fed, Robert Kaplan of the Dallas Fed and Neil Kashkari of the Minneapolis Fed and I think of particular interest to see how hawkish or dovish these three new voting members are given that they actually will be replacing a couple of probably more hawkish members from the 2016 bunch. This then of course since that Fed meeting the economic data has proved to be much more resilient than had been expected, which means that the narrative is likely to have moved on somewhat and there is the prospect that at all these minutes could well be a little bit dated. Inflation still rising sharply, retail sales growth has also improved substantially with an upward revision to December and a very decent number for January. We've also seen a decent payrolls number since then which suggests there still remains a significant degree of slack in the US labor market. Given all of that surely a March rate rise is pretty much a done deal given Yellen's comments that it would be unwise to wait too long before raising rates again. Now in all ordinary circumstances I think you would certainly think so but we don't live in a world where ordinary circumstances prevail. It is certainly true that US CPI inflation has hit its highest levels since March 2012 but we're also seeing equally big rises in UK and EU inflation and the latest EU inflation numbers are expected to come in around about 1.8% for January. Furthermore the way US CPI is measured is slightly different to how the UK and EU measures prices given that includes health care and rent costs which have risen quite substantially therefore its headline rate is much higher, it's at 2.5% highest level since March 2012. So this means that the lack of wage growth is likely to be a much more major factor in US policymakers decision making process than it would be say for example UK and EU policymakers and while the Fed wants to keep a March move in play it doesn't necessarily mean that we'll see a move then despite the fact the market is pricing around about a 45% probability that it might happen. One of the more worrying aspects I think of the most recent US economic data has been recent wages data. It's been significantly disappointing in fact recent real wages saw a drop of minus 0.6 in January which means essentially that US consumers in the same way that I think UK consumers are going to feel a significant wages or income pinch as the year progresses. We've already seen bond yields in the US start to edge higher again and that can be seen from this chart here. This is yields around about 2.24, 2.25% on the US 10 year. If we actually look at the yield chart on this Bloomberg chart here we can see that very well illustrated how the yields are consolidating in a triangular formation and the prospect here is that if we do get a breakout either way we'll see a significant move higher or lower around about 25 to 30 basis points either higher or lower in US Treasury yields. Now if we see that break higher then obviously that is going to impact quite substantially on US mortgage costs which are directly correlated to US bond yields and certainly that was something that Mrs Yellen did mention in her testimony to US lawmakers in the middle of the week ultimately the housing costs were starting to become that much more expensive. Another factor that could drag on the Fed is her disappointment about the level of GDP growth. In spite of the very loose monetary policy that we are seeing in the US economy. So I think the Fed has to sort of walk a line with respect as to whether or not they run the risk of exacerbating that in March with respect to a potential rate rise. So that's the number of key factors that I think policymakers will have to sort of bear in mind when it comes to potentially making a decision on interest rates. All those minutes clarify that I think it's very hard to make a case either way. What we'll also be seeing in the coming week is the latest four-year results for UK banks with HSBC, Lloyd's Banking Group, Barclays and RBS all reporting their four-year results with a particular focus I think on the Royal Bank of Scotland given the fact that they're likely to be reporting yet another annual loss. So that's it for this week. Thanks very much for listening. This is Michael Huston talking to you from CMC Markets.