(Reuters) – smashing the $100,000 barrier raises the prospect of the cryptocurrency going mainstream, U.S. inflation data will show how much pressure there is on the Fed to adjust rates and central banks in Europe, Australia and Brazil meet.

Here’s what to look out for in the week ahead from Marcela Ayres in Brasilia, Kevin Buckland in Tokyo, Ira Iosebashvili in New York, and Dhara Ranasinghe and Amanda Cooper in London.

1/ FOUR, AND COUNTING

For ECB policymakers, their last meeting in October must seem a lifetime ago.

Since then, Donald Trump’s U.S. election win means the euro area faces renewed economic pain with likely tariffs, and governments in heavyweight Germany and France have collapsed, with the latter engulfed in its second political crisis in six months. All that has dealt a blow to sentiment in a bloc where business activity is deteriorating – and the euro has slid.

The ECB, also no stranger to hard times, is expected to deliver its fourth quarter-point rate cut on Thursday, with more cuts anticipated.

A pick-up in inflation means a bigger rate cut is unlikely. And yes, you guessed it, ECB chief Christine Lagarde will likely stress caution and data-dependency. 

2/ A CUT AND A HARD PLACE

    Australia’s central bank, which meets on Tuesday, is in a tight spot. The economy is sputtering, the currency is at four-month lows and yet inflation is sufficiently persistent to make repeated rate cuts unlikely.

The chances of a quarter-point reduction are below 15% and rates are expected to take until July to fall even 50 bps.

The Bank of Canada, by contrast, looks set to answer investors’ wishes for more cuts. It has said inflation is a thing of the past and more cuts could be in the offing, leaving the market split on whether its Dec. 11 meeting will yield a 25- or even a 50-bps cut.

Enter the most dovish of the G10 central banks – the Swiss National Bank. With inflation at 0.7%, it is expected to cut rates by 50 bps on Dec. 12.

3/ NO HURRY

Markets gaming out the trajectory for Federal Reserve policy in the months ahead get a U.S. inflation reading on Wednesday. The Fed has shaved 75 basis points (bps) off interest rates since September, following months of cooling inflation – expectations are towards another 25 bps cut later in December. 

But the path ahead is less clear. The economy has proved stronger than expected, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said there is little reason to hurry the pace of cuts.

A strong number could bolster that view, potentially reigniting a bond selloff and strengthening the dollar if investors decide to further unwind bets on how much the Fed will cut next year. Economists polled by Reuters expect consumer prices to have risen 0.2% in November – matching the October rise.

4/ BITCOIN BREAKOUT

There was something inevitable in Bitcoin’s record surge past $100,000 after Trump’s election promises to make America “the crypto capital of the planet”.

    But it did so in resounding fashion, vaulting from below $99,000 to as high as $103,619 in the space of two hours before catching its breath. The catalyst may have been confirmation of Trump’s choice of crypto veteran Paul Atkins to run the SEC. Of course, $100,000 is just a number – but one the faithful and the sceptical regard as a major milestone in Bitcoin’s 16-year journey towards legitimacy.

    Recall though that its history is written in breathless rallies and white-knuckle reversals. While numbers like $150,000 are already being mentioned for 2025, the token is flashing overbought on daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly charts.

5/ FINAL ACT

Brazil’s central bank holds its final meeting under Governor Roberto Campos Neto on Wednesday, with bets on a sharper 75 bps hike after two raises that brought rates to 11.25%.

Campos Neto, set to hold a news conference on Dec. 19, said a positive fiscal shock could relieve pressure on the exchange rate and long-term yields in Latin America’s largest economy. But the government’s widely anticipated fiscal package disappointed markets, driving up risk premiums on major assets.

Brazil’s real has weakened some 20% against the dollar year-to-date, and strong economic resilience – on display in the third quarter – is fuelling inflation worries. As policymakers grapple with mounting challenges, Congress debates measures to curb spending and contain debt growth.

(Graphics by Sumanta Sen, Kripa Jayaram and Prinz Magtulis, Compiled by Karin Strohecker, Editing by Barbara Lewis (JO:))

Investing.com – The US dollar gained marginally Friday, with traders expressing a degree of caution ahead of the eagerly-anticipated monthly jobs report, while the euro continued to show weakness.

At 05:00 ET (10:00 GMT), the Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, traded 0.1% higher to 105.827, near three-week lows after falling 0.6% overnight. 

Payrolls could drive dollar direction

Dollar bulls have been partially restrained this week after and weekly pointed to a weakening labor market, suggesting the Federal Reserve has scope to cut interest rates further.

However, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, in a speech earlier this week, indicated that the US economy is stronger now than the central bank had expected in September when it began reducing interest rates.

The market is still expecting a rate cut in December, but the official jobs report, due later in the session, could move the dial.

Forecasts are centred on a rise of around 200,000 to jobs in November, rebounding from October’s meager hurricane-impacted 12,000 gain, while the is seen edging up to 4.2% from 4.1%.

“The market is sitting long on the dollar after two months of a Trump-powered rally. Investors like the dollar story into 2025, but the question is whether they have to suffer a position-led shake-out first. Today represents a risk to those positions in the form of the November jobs report,” said analysts at ING, in a note.

Euro hit by weak German data

In Europe, dropped 0.1% to 1.0575, with the single currency hit by data showing unexpectedly fell in October, pointing to further weakness in the eurozone’s dominant economy.

Production was down by 1.0% in October from the previous month, after a upwardly revised decline of 2.0% in September and an increase of 2.6% in August.

“This means that the industrial economy is still in a downturn,” said the German economy ministry in a statement. 

The as a whole grew 0.4% on a quarterly basis in the third quarter, data showed earlier Friday, an annual gain of 0.9%.

This meager growth points to another rate cut by the European Central Bank next week, and the market is pricing in over 150 basis points of easing by the end of 2025.

At the same time, traders are having to factor in more French political turmoil after Prime Minister Michel Barnier lost a no-confidence vote earlier in the week, with President Emmanuel Macron set to install a new prime minister quickly.

The fall of the government leaves France without a clear path toward reducing its budgetary deficit, credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s said on Thursday.

“With less than four weeks until the end of the year, and even less time remaining until the Dec. 21 deadline to pass the budget, regardless of whether a new government is formed, S&P Global Ratings believes that the likelihood of an amended 2025 budget plan to be passed by year-end 2024 is low,” it said.

traded 0.1% higher to 1.2763, with sterling helped by data showing UK house prices rose for the fifth month in a row in November, pointing to a recovering economy.

Mortgage lender said prices rose by 1.3% during the month for the biggest increase so far this year, pushing the annual growth rate up to 4.8%, its strongest level since November 2022.

Asian currencies muted

In Asia, most currencies were subdued on Friday ahead of key US jobs data.

gained 0.3% to 150.57, rose 0.2% to 7.2709, and dropped 0.4% to 0.6426. 

rose 0.5% to 1,419.96, with the pair set to rise 1.8% this week, its biggest weekly rise since early-April, after President Yoon Suk-Yeol’s failed attempt to impose martial law in the country.

slipped marginally to 84.680 after the kept benchmark interest rates unchanged, as expected on Friday, but cut its cash reserve ratio requirement for local banks.

The central bank also lowered its economic growth projection for the current fiscal year and raised its inflation estimate.

By Ankur Banerjee and Harry Robertson

SINGAPORE/LONDON (Reuters) – The euro picked up on Thursday despite the collapse of the French government, which had been widely expected, while bitcoin galloped past $100,000 for the first time and the yen rallied as traders looked to the Bank of Japan decision on Dec. 19.

, the world’s best known cryptocurrency, has been on a tear since November on expectations that Donald Trump’s U.S. election win will usher in a friendly regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies.

It rose to an all-time high of $103,619 in Asian hours, boosted by President-elect Trump’s nomination of pro-crypto Paul Atkins to run the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It was last fetching $103,100, up about 5% on the day and taking its year-to-date gains to more than 140%.

“There’s reason to believe this thing could keep going,” said Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.Com, stressing the friendlier regulatory environment.

The euro was up 0.23% at $1.0533, not far from the two-year low of $1.0332 hit at the end of November as traders braced for a drawn-out reckoning for France.

French lawmakers passed a no-confidence vote against the government on Wednesday evening, throwing the country deeper into a crisis that threatens its ability to tame a massive budget deficit. The risk premium – or spread – investors demand to hold French debt over German has risen to around its highest since 2012.

The euro rose despite the uncertainty because the collapse of the government was already priced in, said Lee Hardman, senior currency analyst at MUFG.

“The contagion outside of French markets is fairly limited. If you look at the spreads between (German and) Italian and Spanish bonds they’ve actually been falling, so it’s not spilling over into European markets and that limits the implications for the European economy,” he said.

Traders are all but certain the European Central Bank will cut rates next week and are pricing in around 157 basis points of easing by the end of 2025.

YEN GAINS GROUND

In Asia, the Japanese yen rose as high as 149.66 but was last up 0.13% at 150.44 as traders assessed whether the Bank of Japan will hike interest rates later this month.

Analysts said comments from typically dovish policymaker Toyoaki Nakamura that he’s not opposed to rate hikes had helped push the currency higher.

Expectations had been growing that the BOJ will hike rates at its Dec. 18-19 meeting, buoyed by comments from Governor Kazuo Ueda. But media reports published on Wednesday suggested the BOJ may skip a rate hike this month, muddling those wagers.

The South Korean won dipped slightly as the nation’s finance ministry said the government would activate 40 trillion won ($28.35 billion) worth of market stabilization funds after the chaos that followed President Yoon Suk Yeol declaring martial law on Tuesday and then rescinding this.

The , which measures the U.S. currency against six rivals, was slightly lower at 106.18.

Sterling ticked up 0.17% to $1.2724, while the Australian dollar was flat at $0.6431 after dropping about 0.9% in the previous session on weak data.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday the U.S. economy is stronger now than the central bank had expected when it started cutting rates in September, and he appeared to signal his support for a slower pace of reductions ahead.

Bets on Fed rate cuts held broadly steady, however, perhaps influenced by weaker-than-expected services sector data released on Wednesday. Markets are pricing in about a 74% chance of a 25-basis-point rate cut later this month.

The spotlight will be on Friday’s U.S. non-farm payrolls report for November, which is expected to show 200,000 jobs added in the month, according to a Reuters survey, after only 12,000 jobs were created in October, the lowest number since December 2020.