Housing figures in the US, British GDP for the second quarter and a rate decision in Canada are the highlights of the upcoming week. Here’s an outlook for the major market movers.
Apart from the regular indicators, the earnings season in the US stock markets and the expectations towards the European banks’ stress tests also impact the markets. Let’s start:
- American housing figures: Published on Tuesday at 12:30 GMT. The housing sector is critical for the US economy. We have two simultaneous releases: Building permits reached a peak of 690K three months ago, but since then, the situation is deteriorating once again, with a disappointing drop to 570K last month. A small rise is expected this time. Housing starts also fell below 600K to 590K last month, and were disappointing for the greenback. Also here, a small rise is predicted.
- Canadian rate decision: Published on Tuesday at 13:00 GMT. After the initial rate hike in June, Mark Carney’s BOC is expected to raise the rates once again – from 0.50% to 0.75%. Not all the Canadian indicators are shining, but the most sensitive one, employment, is doing really well, so another rate hike is the consensus.
- Ben Bernanke testifies: Starts speaking on Wednesday at 14:00 GMT, and will continue on Thursday at 14:00 GMT. The chairman of the Federal Reserve arrives at the Senate Banking Committee and will talk about the state of the economy, now that it has slowed down once again. Anything he says will rock the markets. He doesn’t always say anything in particular, but the analysts will already comment on his speech and will give it a meaning.
- European Industrial New Orders: Published on Thursday at 9:00 GMT. Inside the Euro-zone, there’s a widening gap between the successful German economy and the other countries. In this official release for the whole region, we’ll see where the continent is going to. After a few positive months, orders rose by a weak rate of 0.9% last month. A drop of 0.1% is expected now.
- American Unemployment Claims: Published on Thursday at 12:30 GMT. This release checks the pulse of the US economy every week and serves as an indicator for the Non-Farm Payrolls. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen small improvements, with a recent fall to 429K last week. But this was dismissed by economists. It’s now expected to rise back to 453K.
- American Existing Home Sales: Published on Thursday at 14:00 GMT. Similar to the other housing figures, also this important indicator disappointed last month with an unexpected drop to 5.66 million sales. Most sales of homes are of existing ones, so this indicator is very significant. A drop from 5.66 to 5.15 million is expected now.
- German Ifo Business Climate: Published on Friday at 8:00 GMT. This wide survey of businesses has been very positive in in recent months, despite the economic turmoil that the markets felt. It reached a score of 101.8 points and is likely to continue the steady rise. Only a serious drop under 100 points will hurt the Euro.
- British GDP: Published on Friday at 8:30 GMT. After lagging behind other countries, Britain saw two quarters of growth. Last quarter’s 0.3% growth rate which was confirmed just last week, will probably be followed by a stronger growth rate in Q2. We’ve seen better numbers at the unofficial NIESR release. Note that the preliminary release, like now, is usually worse than the final outcome. A growth rate of 0.6% is expected now.
That’s it for the major events this week. Stay tuned for coverages on specific currencies. Further reading:
- For EUR/USD, check out the Euro/Dollar Forecast.
- For GBP/USD (cable), look into the British Pound forecast.
- For the Australian dollar (Aussie), check out the AUD/USD forecast.
- For the New Zealand dollar (kiwi), read the NZD/USD forecast.
- For USD/CAD (loonie), check out the Canadian dollar forecast.
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