Here is an economic news calendar for the week of June 6th to 10th that highlights the main news items and reports related to U.S., Canada, Australia, China and Europe.
(all times GMT):
- Tuesday 7th of June 5.30 – Reserve Bank of Australia – rate statements: The overnight money market interest rate of Australia’s Reserve Bank remained unchanged in the past six months at 4.75%. Since the inflation rate remains at the Bank’s target, and the labor force remained strong with unemployment rate below 5%, it’s likely that the interest rate will remain unchanged (see here previous report);
- Tuesday 7th of June 14.00 – Ben Bernanke, Chairman of Fed, speaks: This week Ben Bernanke is expected to give a speech about the U.S. economic outlook. The stimulus plan of the Federal Reserve, in which it bought bonds at 600 billion US dollar, is about to end by the end of this month; therefore it will be important to see if Bernanke will suggest or imply what will be the next steps that the Fed will implement to further jumpstart the U.S. economy, mainly after the very disappointing labor report (see here Fed’s site);
- Wednesday 8th of June 15.30 – EIA report about Crude oil inventories: The EIA (Energy Information Administration) will publish a weekly report on the U.S Petroleum prices and oil stocks; in the previous report, U.S. Petroleum and oil stocks rose during last week by 7.2 million barrels, or by 0.41%. For the week ending on May 27th the oil stocks reached 1,788 million barrels – the highest level since February 11th, 2011 (see here my recent review on crude oil stocks);
- Thursday 9th of June 13.30 –Canadian Trade balance: The June Canadian statistics report on Canada’s trade balance regards April 2011. In the May report regarding March 2011, Imports and exports rose during that month: exports increased by 2.8%, and imports inclined by 2.8%; as a result, the trade surplus grew from $356 million in February to $627 million in March; exports of energy products inclined by 50%, to $9.4 billion, and exports of industrial goods and materials increased by 3.7% to $9.6 billion;
- Thursday 9th of June 13.30 – Report on American Trade balance: This monthly report will show the changes in imports and exports of goods and services to and from the US, including major commodities such as crude oil for the month of April 2011; The American trade balance for March 2011 showed the goods deficit increased by $3 billion compared to February 2011 and reached $48.2 billion; the service surplus rose by $0.3 billion to $13.9 billion; nonetheless, the goods and services deficit increased by $8.7 billion from March 2010 to March 2011;
- Thursday 9th of June 13.30 – ECB conference rate decision: The ECB will report its decision regarding the European Union interest rate. The inflation in the Euro Area moderately declined to 2.7% during May 2011 (annual terms), which is still high compared to the ECB’s target rate of below 2%. Last month ECB kept its basic interest rate at 1.25%. I speculate that Jean Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, will likely to keep the rate at 1.25% unchanged, mainly in order not to affect and raise the EURO/USD (see here my previous report on ECB’s rate decision);
- Thursday 9th of June 13.30 – Department of Labor report – U.S. unemployment claims: For the week ending on May28th, initial claims decreased by 6,000, as it reached 422,000 claims; the insured unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.0% for the week ending on May 21st; and the number of insured unemployment was 3.711 million, a decrease of 10,000 compared to the previous week’s number. (see here my recent review on the US Labor market );
- Thursday 9th of June 15.30 – EIA report about Natural gas storage: the EIA will publish its U.S. natural gas stocks, production and consumption report regarding the week ending on June 3rd. In the previous EIA report, natural gas storage inclined for the eighth straight week, last week by 4.1%, i.e. a 83 Bcf; as a result, the natural gas storage rose to 2.107 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states (see here my recent natural gas storage review);
- Friday 10th of June tentative– Chinese Trade Balance report: This monthly report presents the Chinese Trade Balance of goods and services presents for the month of May 2011; the report will show the changes in import of major commodities including crude oil and metals; seeing that China is among the world largest importer of crude oil and metals, this report will indicate the change in China’s demand for these commodities; in the previous report regarding April, the exports inclined by 2.3%, while the imports declined by 5.2% (see here last report);
- Friday 10th of June 12.00 – Canada unemployment rate and employment report: In the previous employment report regarding April 2011, employment increased by 58,000, mainly in part time. This was the first major improvement in over two months. The unemployment rate declined by 0.1 percent points to 7.6%. If this report will show an additional improvement in the labor report in Canada this might further strengthen the Canadian dollar and consequently might also affect the prices of major commodities that Canada export such as crude oil and natural gas (see here previous report).
[ratings]
For further reading:
- Gold and Silver seeking direction – weekly recap 31 May- 3 June
- Gold and silver prices outlook for June 2011
Previous Reports: