Weekly Outlook for August 22-26

The second week of high volatility in the financial markets has ended, and the upcoming week may continue this trend. There are many news items on the agenda for the upcoming week including, among others, the Bernanke speech, US mortgage delinquency rate, US GDP Q2 2011, Euro manufacturing PMI, and U.S. news home sales. Here is an economic news calendar for the week of August 22nd to August 26th that highlights the main news items and reports related to U.S, Euro zone, Australia, Germany, France and Canada.   

(all times GMT):

  1. Monday 22nd of August 15:00– US Mortgage delinquency rate Q2 2011: This quarterly report shows the rate of deliquesce on mortgage payments; this rate includes at least one payment past due on mortgage payments but does not include loans in the process of foreclosure. During the first quarter, the seasonally adjusted  deliquesce rate slightly increased to 8.32% – up by 7 basis points from the fourth quarter 2010, but declined by 174 basis points from 1Q 2010. This figure is another good indication of the real estate market condition in the US (see here recent report);
  2. Tuesday 23rd of August 08:00– French and German flash manufacturing PMI (August 2011): Following Germany’s very disappointing Q2 GDP growth rate, there are concerns of an ongoing slowdown in Germany. If this upcoming report will show another slowdown in August it might further increase the speculation around a recession in Europe. In the previous report, the German private sector output growth reached a near halt; the same can by said on France; in total, the Euro zone PMI growth rate slowed to near stagnation during July as it fell from 53.3 in June to 50.8 in July;
  3. Tuesday 23rd of August 10:00 – Euro and German ZEW economic sentiment: The upcoming publication will refer to the ZEW indicator of economic sentiment for Germany and Euro zone for August 2011. During July 2011 the ZEW indicator declined by 6.1 points (see here the recent report);
  4. Tuesday 23rd of August 13:30 – Core retails sales Canada (May 2011): This report shows the main changes that occurred in the retails sales in Canada during May 2011. It may affect the USD/CAD exchange rate. In the previous report pertaining April 2011, retails sales slightly inclined by 0.1% to $37.5 billion; in volume terms the sales remained unchanged. the largest increase among sub sectors was in the building materials that rose by 3.3%; gasoline station sales inclined by 1.1% during May 2011 (see here the full report);
  5. Tuesday 23rd of August 15:00 – U.S. new home sales: This report shows the changes in the real estate market during July 2011 and the new home sales in the U.S.; in the recent report (June 2011), the sales of new homes reached an annual rate of 213,000 – a decrease of 1% compared with the number of new homes sold in May 2011, but its 1.6% above the home sales rate in June 2010; since the rate of existing home sales fell in July, the same might be true also for new home sales (see here the recent review);
  6. Wednesday 24th of August 13:30 – US Department of Commerce – Report on core Durable Goods: This monthly report will show the changes in orders of durable goods in the U.S. in the manufacturing sector in July. This report indirectly shows the changes in U.S. demand for goods including major commodities such as crude oil. The current expectations for July are of another decline in new orders. During June 2011, manufactured durable goods decreased by $4.0 billion or 2.1% to $192.0 billion; Non-defense new orders for capital goods decreased by $3.0 billion or 4.1% to $69.8 billion (for the full report);
  7. Wednesday 24th of August 15:30 – EIA report about Crude oil inventories: The EIA (Energy Information Administration) will publish its weekly report on the U.S Petroleum market for the week ending on August 19th; last week the US oil stockpiles declined by 1.37 million barrels to  1,795 million barrels (see here the recent crude oil market review);
  8. Thursday 25th of August 13:30 – Department of Labor report – U.S. unemployment claims: For the week ending on August 13th, initial claims increased by 9,000, as it reached 408,000 claims; the insured unemployment rate remained unchanged at 2.9% for the week ending on August 6th; the number of insured unemployment was 3.702 million, a decrease of 4,500 compared with the previous week’s (see here my recent review on the US Labor market);
  9. Thursday 25th of August 15:30 – EIA report about Natural gas storage: the natural gas market in the US bounced back last week due to increase in electric sector; the EIA will publish its U.S. natural gas stocks, production and consumption report for the week ending on August 19th. In the recent report, natural gas storage inclined by 1.8% to 2,833 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states – the highest stock level since January 7th, 2011; the natural gas storage is 5.8% below the storage level during the same week in 2010 (see here my recent natural gas storage review);
  10. Thursday 25th of August 4.05 – Reserve Bank of Australia – Governor Stevens talks: The Governor of the RBA will give a speech about the economic progress of Australia, the RBA outlook of the growth of Australian economy and the monetary policy of RBA; this speech may signal the future steps that RBA will take and consequently may affect the Australian dollar currency (see here his last speech);
  11. Friday 26th of August 09.00 – Monetary developments in the euro area: This monthly report is about M3, M1 and loans to private sector in the Euro area. This upcoming report will refer to July 2011. In the previous June 2011 report, the annual growth rate for M3 declined to 2.1%. The M1 remained unchanged at 1.6%. Finally, the annual growth rate of loans to private sector inclined from 2.7% in May to 2.5% in June. If this decline will continue in July it could serve as another indicator of a slowdown in economic activity in Europe and  may affect ECB’s interest rate decision in the months to come (see here the last report);
  12. Friday 26th of August 09:30– US GDP 2Q 2011report: This will be a second estimate report pertaining second quarter 2011 real US GDP. In the first estimate the 2Q2011 GDP growth rate was 1.3%, compared with a 0.4% increase in the 1Q10. This shows a very moderate rise in US’s GDP growth rate (for the first estimate of 2Q GDP).
  13. Friday 26th of August 15:00 – Ben Bernanke, Chairman of Fed, speaks: Following the recent FOMC meeting, in which it was decided to keep interest rates low until mid-2013, there are those who speculate whether QE3 will be on the agenda. But I still think that since the recent quantitative easing plans didn’t prove much to be effective, it’s unlikely that Bernanke will use this measurement again (see here Fed’s site);

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