In the US, Unemployment Claims, value the number the unemployed that asked for insurance on the past month, about to reduce down to 397K from 402K in November.

Last week some encouraging figures were released with a 1.9% gain in Retail sales above the 0.7% increase expected and 2.4% gain in Prelim Industrial Production. Well above the 1.1% rise predicted furthermore Average Cash Earnings increased by 0.1% while expected to remain flat. Will this positive trend continue?

In the US, Richard Fisher, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President is due to deliver a speech in Dallas.

Last week The BOJ maintained the overnight call rate at 0.10%. Leading Indicators climbed more than predicted to 106.0 but Core Machinery Orders slid 8.2%, worse than the 3.9% drop predicted indicating a bumpy road to recovery.

In the US, Richard W. Fisher President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is about to deliver a speech in Dallas.

In the US, Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Statement, It’s the primary tool the FOMC uses to communicate with investors about monetary policy. It contains the outcome of their vote on interest rates and other policy measures, along with commentary about the economic conditions that influenced their votes. Most importantly, it discusses the economic outlook and offers clues on the outcome of future votes.

Following Japn’s strongest earthquake on record and the tsunami it triggered on March 11 the government plans to compile a spending package over the medium to long-term to cope with the consequences of the enormous devastation.  Northern Tohoku region was most affected by the disaster comprising 8% from the total GDP will require a lot of support to rebuild the factories and try to save a nuclear power plant from a risk of a meltdown. Officials will use about 200 billion yen ($2.4 billion) left over from the budget for the fiscal year ending March 31 to pay for the recovery effort. Unfortunately the full financial impact of this terrible earthquake is yet to be assessed.

In the US, Unemployment Claims, is about to reduce by 9K from the last week. Important signal of overall economic health because consumer spending is highly correlated with labor-market conditions.