Next Week
March 27, 2009
Next week’s calendar of events and data is very heavy. Thursday’s G-20 summit is the main event in a week that also includes the U.S. March labor force survey, the Bank of Japan quarterly Tankan survey of business conditions and prospects, an ECB policy meeting and purchasing manager survey results (PMI’s)from many advanced and developing economies. Analysts expect the ECB and Bank Indonesia to cut their rates by 50 basis points. the Romanian Central Bank also meets and, like other monetary authorities in Eastern Europe where currencies are exposed, will at most cut rates by 25 basis points. The U.S. will have shed over 600K jobs again, and the Tankan diffusion indices will be substantially lower than those reported in December.
Other Japanese data releases include industrial production, unemployment, real household spending, housing starts, construction orders, the Shoko Chukin survey, car sales, the monetary base, a PMI, and wage earnings.
Britain reports several house price measures (Halifax, Nationwide, and Hometrack), M4, bank lending, mortgage approvals, consumer credit, consumer confidence, a survey of credit conditions, and PMI reports for manufacturing, services and construction.
Many of the PMI’s will be reported in the euro area, both for the union as a whole and for its individual members. In addition, Euroland releases overall economic sentiment, consumer confidence, industrial sentiment, preliminary consumer prices, and unemployment. German retail sales and unemployment will attract keen interest. Italy announces retail sales and both its PPI and CPI. French producer prices and housing starts are scheduled, as are Spanish and Belgian consumer prices.
Swiss consumer price and current account data arrive, as do Swedish consumer confidence and business sentiment. Norway reports retail sales, and Turkey releases quarterly GDP.
Canada will publish monthly GDP figures. From Australia comes private credit growth, retail sales, building permits and monthly trade numbers. New Zealand chips in with business sentiment and building approvals.
South Korea has a full slate of releases, including industrial output, the current account, trade, and the leading economic indicators index. Thailand reports consumer prices and industrial production, and both Singapore and China report new PMI readings.
The U.S. jobless rate, which climbed from 6.2% in September to 8.1% by February, probably will have jumped another half-percentage point. Unless the recession follows a best-case scenario from here, a good chance exists that the 10.8% peak in late 1982 will get taken out in the next year or two. Other scheduled U.S. data are the regional and national PMI’s, the Case-Shiller index of house prices, pending home sales, construction orders, auto sales, consumer confidence, factory orders, and the usual weekly reports like jobless claims, energy stocks, mortgage applications and chain store sales.
Outside of the G-20 summit, not many officials have scheduled speeches or testimonies.
Copyright 2009 Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
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