A calm week is ahead of us in between Christmas and New Year’s Day with American CB Consumer Confidence, Unemployment Claims and Pending Home Sales. Here is an outlook on the market movers closing 2010.
Recent encouraging data from the US suggests solid fourth-quarter growth hopes in light of an anticipated climb in consumer spending together with bright news from the Job market where initial claims for unemployment benefits continued dropping to 420,000 and a surge in University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index rising to 74.5 from 71.6 in November. Are we to expect real recovery in 2011?
- US CB Consumer Confidence, Tuesday: 15:00. U.S. consumer confidence rose to 54.1 in November following 49.9 in October figure revised down from 50.2. Analysts expected the index to rise to 52.0. Although very close to the 50 point line, the US economy is recovering in a slow pace. Another impressive rise to 56.6 is forecasted now.
- Switzerland KOF Economic Barometer: Wednesday, 10:30. KOF Institute’s economic barometer fell to 2.12 points in November from 2.16 in October while economists had forecast a reading of 2.11. The index fell for a third time comprised of the core GDP, the construction module is and the banking module showing al in all a positive trend. The index is expected another slight drop to 2.10.
- American Unemployment Claims: Thursday, 13:30. Another encouraging sign of improvement in the job market when initial claims dropped to 420,000 from 423,000 last week despite predictions of 1000 increase. This is the fourth week of drops situating the job market in a positive direction. Analysts believe that a further drop to 400,000 will finally lower unemployment rate. An even lower reading of 416,000 is expected now.
- US Pending Home Sales: Thursday, 15:00. Pending sales of existing U.S. homes unexpectedly surged in October by 10.4% reaching 89.3 after 80.9 in September while economists expected a decline of 0.5%. This improvement is really encouraging however needs to improve further to reach a healthy sustainable state. Pending sales is expected to drop 8.2% compared to October with 2.2% rise.
- Britain Housing Data: Friday. U.K. house price index fell by a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in November, after declining by 0.7% in October. Analysts had expected the house price index to decline by 0.4%. Year-on-year Home prices grew by 0.4% in November. Property value has dropped since spring due to a rise in house sales following a standstill situation in 2009 and early 2010. House prices are likely to rise once the number of house sales will decrease.
* All times are GMT.
Further reading:
- For EUR/USD, check out the Euro/Dollar forecast.
- For the Japanese yen, read the USD/JPY forecast.
- For GBP/USD (cable), look into the British Pound forecast.
- For the Australian dollar (Aussie), check out the AUD forecast.
- For the New Zealand dollar (kiwi), read the NZD forecast.
- For USD/CAD (loonie), check out the Canadian dollar forecast.
Share
