It looks like another interesting week ahead for investors, with a heavy focus once again on the US economy. Key inflation data is due out, the Fed Chair will testify to the Senate, and a fresh earnings season is kicking off.
The calendar isn’t as busy as last week, but we do have the results of the French election hitting the market early on Monday and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) delivering its latest rate call on Wednesday.
Here is our usual day-by-day breakdown of the major risk events this week:
A very quiet start to the week in terms of data releases with only lower-tier data out across all three trading sessions. However, traders expect to see moves in the Euro early in the day as the French election results hit the newswires.
Another quiet day in the first two trading sessions, but the focus will firmly be on US markets once New York opens, with both Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen due to testify.
A much busier day for the Asian session. The initial focus will be on Chinese markets with the release of key CPI and PPI data sets, before moving south to New Zealand for the latest rate call from the RBNZ. The European session again has little to offer in terms of risk events, but once New York opens, Fed Chair Jerome Powell faces round two of his testimonies, this time before the House Financial Services Committee. Later in the session, fixed-income traders will be keenly watching the results of the 10-year bond auction.
Another quiet day for the APAC session, although the focus will be on UK markets early in the European day when the latest GDP data is released. When New York opens, the most important data update of the week will be the latest CPI update. Traders will be looking for this to confirm other recent weaker prints to open the way for Fed rate cuts. The weekly unemployment claims data is also due out alongside them.
The focus will again be on the US session with little of note on the calendar in the first two sessions. The key PPI data is due out early in the day, and traders will be looking for consistency with the previous day’s CPI print. The week will close out with the release of the latest Prelim University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment and Inflation Expectations data releases.
