- Interest rate decisions from US Fed, ECB and BoE
- US Non-Farm Payrolls for January
- Busy week for Q4 earnings
Monday 30 January
It’s a relatively quiet start to what could be an eventful week. First thing we have German Retail Sales, the UK’s Nationwide House Price Index and Spanish Consumer Price Index (CPI). Later, we have China’s Conference Board Leading Index. Earnings updates include Applied Materials, H&R Block, ExxonMobil and PayPal.
Tuesday 31 January
Overnight we have Retail Sales and Private Sector Credit from Australia. From China we have updates on Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing PMIs, then there’s Japanese Housing Starts and Consumer Confidence. From France we have Consumer Spending, Flash GDP and Preliminary CPI, while from Switzerland there’s Retail Sales and the KOF Economic Barometer. We also have German CPI, Unemployment, Preliminary GDP, Italian Unemployment and Preliminary GDP. From the UK there’s M4 Money Supply and Net Lending to Individuals. From the US we have the Employment Cost Index, the Case Shiller Composite 20-year House Price Index, Chicago PMI, and Conference Board Consumer Confidence. Today’s earnings include Advanced Micro Devices, McDonald’s, Caterpillar, General Motors, Pfizer, Snap, Spotify and Qualcomm.
Wednesday 01 February
Overnight we have the British Retail Consortium’s Shop Price Index, Japan’s Manufacturing PMI, and China’s Caixin Manufacturing PMI. We also get Manufacturing PMIs from Spain, Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany, the Eurozone, Canada, the UK and the US. There’s also the Eurozone’s CPI Flash Estimate and Unemployment Rate, and from the US there’s the ADP Non-Farm Employment Change, JOLTS Job openings, Construction Spending, Crude Oil Inventories and Total Vehicle Sales. But the most important event is the US Federal Reserve’s FOMC monetary policy statement, rate announcement and subsequent press conference led by Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The current expectation is that the FOMC will raise rates by 25 basis points, giving the key Fed Funds rate an upper bound of 4.75%. If so, this would be the smallest rate hike since March last year when the US central bank began a series of rate hikes taking Fed Funds from 0.25% to 4.50% in December 2022. It would also seem to suggest that the Fed is getting closer to its ‘terminal rate’ – the level where it could pause and then assess the effectiveness of rate hikes to date. Key earnings reports come from Amazon NASDAQ:AMZN, Meta Platforms NASDAQ:META, News Corp and Pinterest.
Thursday 02 February
The day begins with Australian Building Approvals and the NAB Quarterly Business Confidence survey. Later we have the German Trade Balance, the French Government Budget Balance, Spanish Unemployment and the Swiss SECO Consumer Climate survey. Then we have the Bank of England’s interest rate decision and latest Monetary Policy Report. The Bank is lagging the US Federal Reserve, but it may catch up a bit now as its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is expected to raise its Official Bank Rate by 50 basis points to 4.0%. Just over an hour later the European Central Bank (ECB) will announce its own interest rate update. Like the MPC its expected to raise its Main Refinancing Rate by 50 basis points. But due to concerns over the Eurozone economy, this will only take its headline interest rate up to 3.0%. Later, from the US we have Challenger Job Cuts, weekly Unemployment Claims and Factory Orders. It’s an important day for corporate earnings with results coming from Alphabet NASDAQ:GOOGL, Apple NASDAQ:AAPL, Hershey, Ford Motor, Starbucks, Merck and ConocoPhillips.
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Friday 03 February
We start the day with China’s Caixin Services PMI. Then we have French Industrial Production, the Eurozone’s Producer Price Index (PPI) and Services PMIs from Spain, Italy, France, Germany, the Eurozone, UK and US. But the big release is US Non-Farm Payrolls. These have beaten analysts’ expectations since April last year, and it has been a feature that despite the Fed raising rates aggressively since last March, and growing recession fears, that the US employment picture has remained so positive. In fact, last month the Unemployment Rate fell back to 3.5% which matches its 50-year low. On top of this Average Hourly Earnings dipped unexpectedly last month, indicating that wage growth continues to undershoot headline inflation by a significant amount. Any sign showing that the unemployment situation was starting to deteriorate is likely to be interpreted positively by investors, as they would see this as a signal for the Federal Reserve to rein in their monetary tightening. Today’s top earnings come from Cigna.
*Earnings calendar subject to change
David Morrison is an Analyst with Trade Nation. Trade Nation was set up with the specific remit to help customers realise their trading goals by changing the way they engage with the financial markets. As well as providing full transparency and making sure all customers get a fair deal, Trade Nation is fully regulated. This means customers can be confident they’re getting the trading experience they deserve.
