Central bank meetings from the RBA, BoC, the Bank of Japan and the ECB dominated the headlines for the most part.

No changes were seen from the monetary policy perspective.

The ECB was seen to be somewhat hawkish as it removed the easing bias and signaling a path toward policy normalization.

In the U.S. the controversial tariffs on steel and aluminum was signed into law. Only Canada and Mexico were exempt from the new tariffs which are expected to go into effect in 15 days.

U.S. Q4 GDP revised lower to 2.5%

Job growth in the United States showed a significant amount of acceleration in the pace of jobs created underlining the fact that the U.S. labor market still had significant spare capacity.

However, at the same time, the pace of wage growth remained broadly flat.

Data from the Labor Department, released on Friday showed that the U.S. economy added 313,000 jobs in February.

January’s payrolls data was revised higher to show 239k jobs being created. This was higher than the economists forecast who expected around 200k jobs for February.

The stronger than expected number of jobs created came due to higher pace of hiring in the construction and retail sales.

Both these sectors added 61,000 and 50,300 jobs respectively.

Growth in hiring also increased in other sectors spanning from business services to manufacturing and mining sectors.

The unemployment rate was however steady at 4.1%.

Economists forecasted that the U.S. unemployment rate would fall to 4.0% marking a new milestone in the U.S. unemployment history.

The average hourly earnings was however disappointing.

Data from the Labor department showed that average earnings rose by just $0.04 in February, which was a 0.1% increase.

This was lower than the 0.3% that was forecast.

On an annual basis, the average earnings slowed to 2.6% from 2.8% previously.

UK Services PMI accelerates in February

The UK’s services sector was seen expanding at the fastest pace in four months in the month of February.

The gains came on a strong uptick in new word orders.

Data from IHS Markit/CIPS showed that the services PMI rose to 54.5 in February, up from 53.0 the month before. This was the strongest increase and indicated continued expansion in the sector.

The rise in the services sector activity helped to assuage fears of a slowdown in the UK’s economy during the first quarter. However, the services data along with manufacturing and construction output showed that the UK’s economy was resilient.

The services activity showed a pickup in the overall growth in the month of February with the strongest gains come from an increase in new work orders which surged at the fastest pace since May 2017.

Despite the data, the British pound was seen largely focusing on the broader Brexit themes.

ECB removes easing bias – Monetary Policy

The European Central Bank held its monetary policy meeting last week.

As widely expected, the central bank maintained the key interest rates unchanged while also continuing to purchase the asset purchases to the tune of 30 billion euro per month. However, the central bank was seen making changes to the forward guidance.

Investors viewed the changes to the forward guidance as an apparent shift in the ECB’s policies in medium term.

Central bank officials were seen mulling on whether to change the language in the monetary policy based on improving economic conditions. The removal of the easing bias in the monetary policy statement was viewed as being hawkish.

However, despite the hawkish change, the ECB President Mario Draghi downplayed the changes at the press conference.

He reiterated the fact that the central bank will remain accomodative and could extend the bond purchase program beyond September if economic conditions had deteriorated.

The ECB also updated its forecasts on the economy.

The central bank now expects real GDP to rise modestly to 2.4% in 2018 and 1.9% in 2019. Inflation is however expected to remain weak and well below the central bank’s 2% target in 2019.