Next Week
January 30, 2009
The first week of February is very light on Japanese data — just the monetary base and index of leading economic indicators — but will comprise at least seven central bank meetings involving Euroland, the U.K., Australia, South Africa, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, Norway and Peru. Only the ECB is not expected to cut interest rates. 100-basis point reductions seem likely in Australia and South Africa, and most of the others will cut by a half percentage point. The Reserve Bank of Australia releases its quarterly Monetary Policy Statement at the end of the week.
U.S. data releases are led by the monthly labor force survey on Friday, where a street consensus looks for the loss of another half million jobs and a further climb in the unemployment rate to 7.4% or 7.5%. An increasing number of analysts expect the latter to eventually crest above 9%. Other U.S. indicators will be the manufacturing and service-sector purchasing manager indices, construction spending, auto sales, pending home sales, factory orders, jobless insurance claims, and productivity and unit wage costs.
Euroland also releases PMI figures (manufacturing, services and composite) as well as retail sales (first Germany, then the whole euro area), and producer prices. German industrial orders and production figures arrive too, as do French trade numbers, and Italian consumer prices.
From Britain, PMI’s readings, the Nationwide consumer confidence index, shop prices, industrial output and producer prices are due. Switzerland announces its PMI and unemployment figures. Norway unveils factory output and credit growth.
Canada reports the IVEY-PMI , building permits and monthly labor figures. Australian figures for trade, building approvals, and retail sales figures are scheduled for release, and so too are the PMI-mf’g index, the service sector index, and a leading index of inflation. New Zealand unemployment arrives as well.
Copyright 2009 Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
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