This is a pretty important week data wise and will probably set the tone for the next quarter.
Chinese set economic growth at 5% over the weekend which was a disappointment and commodity markets are opening a little weaker on Monday morning. However we do have a lot to digest over the week with FED Governor Powell taking centre stage and he’s unlikely to be anything other than hawkish but his testimony inconveniently for him and the market comes ahead of the important US employment data with a strong print for the data will lead to belief in 50bps rises rather than the 25bps that the markets hope for.
We do have retail sales data in Europe which will be scrutinised for signs that the consumer is feeling the pinch with rates rising if not then we can assume that the Central Banks will be able to concentrate solely on inflation and not on the potential damage to growth.
The Japanese have a rate decision to make and they would prefer to amend the bond rate yields and as this is the last rate decision for the present BOJ Governor: Kuroda who introduced negative interest rates I can’t imagine he will want to change his flagship policy. But his replacement Ueda has already admitted that with inflation running at current rates they will have to normalise….I’m not sure I would have a Yen position on March 10.
Stock markets seem unfazed by higher rates but not so commodities which have become quite sensitive to higher rates and the possibility of world growth rates dropping but the market is also suffering from a lack of investor interest and thereby intraday volatility is going up as well.
Date | Country | Figures | Expected | Previous |
March 06 | EUR | Retail Sales | -1.8% | -2.8% |
March 07 | GBP | Retail Sales | 2.1% | 3.9% |
| USA | FED Chair Powell Testimony |
|
|
March 08 | Germany | Retail Sales | -4.2% | -6.4% |
| EUR | Employment Change | 1.5% | 1.8% |
| EUR | GDP Growth | 1.9% | 2.3% |
| USA | Trade Balance | -$69B | -$67.4B |
| USA | Jolts Job Openings | 10.6M | 11.012M |
| USA | FED Chair Powell Testimony |
|
|
March 09 | China | Inflation rate | 2.3% | 2.1% |
| USA | Initial Jobless Claims | 195K | 190K |
March 10 | Japan | BOJ interest rate decision | -0.1% | -0.1% |
| GBP | GDP MoM | 0.1% | -0.5% |
| USA | Unemployment Rate | 3.4% | 3.4% |
| USA | Non-Farm Payrolls | 200K | 517K |
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