Weekly outlook for July 25-29

Following last week’s meeting between Germany and France’s leaders, in which they have reached an agreement about the bailout of the Greek debt, all eyes are set to the United States and the deliberations between Obama and the Republicans over the raise of the debt ceiling by August 2nd. This news will continue to stir up the financial markets and raise its uncertainty. Here is an economic news calendar for the week of July 25th to July 29th that highlights the main news items and reports related to U.S, Europe, Australia and Canada.   

(all times GMT):

  1. Monday 25th of July 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 (see here his last speech);
  2. Tuesday 26th of July 15.00 – US consumer confidence: in the previous report, the consumer confidence index declined during June compared with May’s index. The current expectations are that this index may drop again in the upcoming report;
  3. Tuesday 26th of July 15:00 – U.S. new home sales: This report shows the changes in the real estate market during June 2011 and it will present the new home sales in the U.S.; in the recent report (May 2011), the sales of new homes reached an annual rate of 319,000; this is a decrease of 2.1% compared with the number of new homes sold in April 2011, but its 13.5% above the home sales rate in May 2010; this report may indicate the progress of the US economy and its recovery from recent recession (see here the recent report);
  4. Wednesday 27th of July 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 June 2011. In the previous report regarding May 2011, the annual growth rate for M3 inclined to 2.4%. On the other hand, there was a declined in the M1 from 1.6% during April to 1.2% during May. Finally, the annual growth rate of loans to private sector inclined from 2.6% in April to 2.7% in May. If this upward trend will continue in the upcoming report, this may influence  ECB’s decision in raising the interest rate in the months to come (see here the last report);
  5. Wednesday 27th of July 13:30 – US Department of Commerce – Report on Durable Goods: This monthly report will show the changes in orders of durable goods in the U.S. in the manufacturing sector during June. This report indirectly shows the changes in U.S. demand for goods including major commodities such as crude oil. During May 2011, manufactured durable goods increased by $3.6 billion or 1.9% to $195.6 billion; Non-defense new orders for capital goods increased by $4 billion or 5.8% to $72.9 billion (for the full report);
  6. Wednesday 27th of July 15:30 – EIA report about Crude oil inventories: The EIA (Energy Information Administration) will publish its weekly report on the U.S Petroleum report; last week the US oil stocks inclined during last week by 3.8 million barrels to 1,800 million barrels – the highest stockpiles since February 4th, 2011. (see here the recent crude oil market review);
  7. Thursday 28th of July 13:30 – Department of Labor report – U.S. unemployment claims: For the week ending on July 16th, initial claims increased by 10,000, as it reached 408,000 claims; the insured unemployment rate moderately declined by 0.1 percent points to 2.9% for the week ending on July 9th; and the number of insured unemployment was 3.698 million, a decrease of 50,000 compared with the previous week’s. (see here my recent review on the US Labor market);
  8. Thursday 28th of July 15:00 – U.S. pending home sales: This report shows the major changes in pending home sales in the U.S. for June 2011; in the recent May report there was an increase in the pending home sales index by 8.2% compared with April’s index. This upcoming report might show a moderate decrease in June, because the recent existing home sales report from last week showed a moderate decline in sales during June (see here the recent report);
  9. Thursday 28th of July 15:30 – EIA report about Natural gas storage: the natural gas started to cool down; the EIA will publish its U.S. natural gas stocks, production and consumption report for the week ending on July 22nd. In the recent report, natural gas storage inclined for the fifteenth straight week; last week by 60 Bcf to 2.671 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states; the NG storage is still 2.2% below the 5-year average, and 7.4% below the storage level during the same week in 2010 (see here my recent natural gas storage review);
  10. Friday 29th of July 10.00 – Euro Area annual inflation (July): despite the recent raise in Euro Area interest rate to 1.5% on July 13th; there are still some concerns regarding the inflation in Euro Area, mainly in Germany, but its not likely that Trichet will raise rate in the following month.  In the last report regarding the inflation rate in June 2011, the annual inflation rate remained at 2.7% for Euro Area. There are expectations that in the upcoming report of July 2011 there will be little change in the CPI (for the full previous report);
  11. Friday 29th of July 13:30 – Canada GDP by industry: This report will present the changes in major industrial sectors for May 2011. In the last report pertaining April 2011, the real gross domestic product remained unchanged after it had risen by 0.3% during Match 2011. During April 2011, the Manufacturing decreased by 0.7%, but the construction activity edged up by 0.1%. This report could affect the strength of CAD exchange rate and consequently major commodities prices (for the full previous report).
  12. Friday 29th of July 13.30 – Bureau of Economic Analysis – US second quarter advance GDP: This is an early estimate of the GDP growth rate of the US economy during the second quarter of 2011. During 1Q 2011 the annual growth rate reached an estimate of 1.9%, which is a drop from a 3.1% annual growth rate during 4Q 2010; The early speculations are that this second quarter GDP growth rate won’t show any large improvement from the first quarter, and it may just increase around the 1.5 -2.0% annual growth rate.

 

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