Main Macro Events This Week

United States: Fedspeak and the FOMC minutes will highlight a light calendar. FOMC minutes March 17, 18 highlight (Wednesday). At that meeting, policymakers had many uncertain and conflicting signals with which to contend. And in the end the decision was to punt. Fedspeak will be very interesting this week, Chair Yellen (Thursday) all 4 voting Presidents and 3 non-voting Presidents all have speeches scheduled this week. Fundamentals this week include: the March ISM nonmanufacturing report and February international trade, along with February JOLTS (all Tuesday) factory orders for February (Today), the Markit services PMI (Tuesday), weekly jobless claims and February consumer credit (Thursday), and wholesale trade (Friday).

Canada: A narrowing is seen in the February trade deficit (Tuesday) to -C$0.4 bln from -C$0.7 bln in January, with exports growing 1.5% m/m after the 1.0% gain in January. An improvement in the March Ivey PMI to 55.0 on a seasonally adjusted basis is anticipated (Wednesday) from 53.4 in February. February building permits (Thursday) are expected to rise 3.0% after the 9.8% drop in January. A pull-back to 205.0k in March is projected for housing starts (Friday) from the 212.6k growth rate in February. A 10.0k rebound in employment (Friday) is seen for March following the 2.3k slip in February and 5.7k decline in January. A steady 7.3% for the unemployment rate is anticipated. Bank of Canada Governor Poloz and Senior Deputy Governor Wilkins will speak (Monday) and Wilkins also has a speech on Tuesday.

Europe: Risk aversion has picked up again in the Eurozone and fresh pressure on European stock markets will keep pressure on Draghi to do even more to support the economy, especially as inflation remains stuck in negative territory. Data releases focus on German orders and production data, Manufacturing orders (Tuesday), are expected to decline, Industrial production (Thursday) is expected to have also corrected in February after the strong start to the year. ECB minutes are published (Thursday). Eurozone Services and Composite PMIs (Wednesday) expected at 54.0, producer price inflation, which is seen falling further into negative territory and retail sales (Tuesday) are expected to rise 0.1% m/m (median same), after 0.4% m/m in January. Germany has trade data on Friday and France production numbers on the same day.

UK: Sterling markets will start the new week in a worried state after Friday’s weak March manufacturing PMI survey caused a steep decline in the GBP. Tuesday’s release of the services PMI survey with economic growth mostly reliant on the big service sector, and after an unexpectedly weak showing in February, which at 52.7 was the worst reading since March 2013. The construction PMI is also due (Today), expected at 54.1 in March, which would be almost unchanged from 54.2 in the prior month.

February industrial production numbers are also due (Friday), expected to ebb to 0.1% m/m growth (median same) after a 0.3% m/m rise in January, and fall to 0.0% in the y/y comparison, compared to 0.2%. February trade numbers (also Friday) are expected to show the visible goods deficit come in at GBP 10.1 bln, near unchanged from the GBP 10.3 deficit seen in January.

China:  The economic calendar is light this week. March services PMI on Wednesday, which is expected to rise to 51.5 from 51.2. March foreign direct investment (Friday) is seen up 2.0% y/y from the 1.8% increase in January.

Japan: The first economic releases come on Wednesday, with the preliminary February leading and coincident indices. The former is seen down 0.5% m/m versus the prior -0.4%, while the latter is expected up 2.8% m/m from 2.9% in January. The February current account surplus (Friday) is expected to widen to JPY 2,100 bln from 520.8 bln in January. March consumer confidence (Friday) is forecast to improve to 40.1 from the prior 40.1.

Australia: The Reserve Bank of Australia is expected to maintain the current 2.00% rate setting (Tuesday), however,  the data for Building Approvals, (better than expected) Retail Sales (worse) and March ANZ job ads (also worse) have been released overnight and have increased pressure on the RBA to act on rates, causing a fall in the AUD. The trade deficit (Tuesday) is projected at -A$2.8 bln in February from -A$2.9 bln in January. RBA Assistant Governor (Economic) Kent speaks on Economic Forecasting at the Reserve Bank of Australia (Wednesday).

Janne Muta

Chief Market Analyst

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