Santa is going away before US CPI and Central Bank Decisions – North American session Market Wrap for December 17

[Ben Graham]

Log in to today's North American session Market wrap for December 17

Yesterday's afternoon session brought some hopes for dip-buying after a rough weekly open, but the reality of uncertain times ahead came right back with a red selling wave.

Traders are reflecting on the unusual year ahead.

Will it be a Hard Landing? Will the long wars end? Is the AI boom really a bubble?

Questions worth many millions.

But some more immediate factors are affecting financial flows:

Participants are getting ready for a second yearly Bank of Japan rate hike which may reduce carry trade potentials yet again (a strong booster for Markets) and the employment picture for the largest Economy is sending some scary signs.

Inflation remains the X factor which could decide whether the Fed has an easy way to cut rates further or not.

Stagflation is not friendly for Markets.

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Market Close Heatmap (16:05 P.M. ET) – Source: TradingView – December 16, 2025

Read More:

• Markets Slide as US Employment Falters – North American Mid-Week Market Update
• EUR/USD Forecast: ECB & US CPI to Drive Price Action, Bulls Remain in Control Above 1.1600 Handle
• US Index Analysis: Nasdaq bleeding, S&P 500 and Dow Jones hurting
• Metals explode: Silver (XAG/USD) hits record $66 as Platinum (XPT/USD) breaks 2011 highs

Cross-Assets Daily Performance

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Cross-Asset Daily Performance, December 17, 2025 – Source: TradingView

Oil is rallying back quite sharply after reaching its yearly troughs just yesterday – Check out our latest analysis of the Commodity to learn more.

For the rest, Risk-Assets took quite a hit after yesterday's hopeful rebound, with all Stock Indexes finishing the session lower.

Bitcoin was subject to quite a pump and dump to $90,000, while metals kept rallying ever higher.

Platinum actually reached some 14 year highs, breaking the 2008 peak.

A picture of today's performance for major currencies

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Currency Performance, December 17 – Source: OANDA Labs

Today's session was roughly a reversal day of the past week's flows.

The Yen gave back some of its advances as traders stop unwinding their positions ahead of the BoJ meeting tomorrow evening.

On the other hand the US dollar rallied back higher after its negative post-NFP trading.

Expect A LOT of movement in FX tomorrow.

If you don't believe me, check out the Economic Calendar just below.

A look at Economic data releasing throughout this evening and tomorrow's sessions

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For all market-moving economic releases and events, see the MarketPulse Economic Calendar.

The Evening to tomorrow should be quite a ride for FX traders.

The evening session will start with Kiwi GDP for New Zealand Dollar traders at 16:45 PM.

But tomorrow is the real deal, with a cocktail of Central Bank Rate decisions coupled with some Huge data for the US.

To begin with, nothing more than a couple of Rate Decisions for the Bank of England (25 bps cut highly expected) from 4% to 3.75% at 7:00 A.M. ET.

Expect dovish communications after the streak of slower data between a miss in Employment and this morning's lower-than-expected (but still high) inflation.

(Check out our recent preview for the event right here).

The second one will follow shortly after with the ECB Rate Decision at 8:15 A.M. This one should be less eventful but 2026 communications could be interesting.

Just 15 minutes after, the long-awaited US CPI number will be released after a long absence for such data.

The 8:30 A.M. bell will also bring the weekly Jobless claims data.

The afternoon should be calmer, but expect more action later in the day: NZD trade, Japanese inflation until the evening session when the Bank of Japan Rate Hike should be delivered.

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