Weekly Outlook for September 19-23

This upcoming week brings many news items that could affect the commodities market including crude oil, gold and silver. The main events will be the FOMC meeting on Wednesday and the IMF meeting to be held over the weekend. Additional news items and reports that will be published this week that could affect traders include: Euro and German ZEW economic sentiment, U.S. Housing Starts, and Euro Area Manufacturing PMI. Here is an economic news calendar for the week of September 19th to September 23rd that highlights the main news items and reports related to the U.S., Euro Area, Canada and Australia.   

(all times GMT):

  1. Monday 19th of September 2:30 – Monetary Policy meeting Australia’s Bank : The minutes of the monetary policy meeting of the reserve bank of Australia will be published; it shows the main domestic and international factors that affected the board’s decisions on the Bank’s basic interest rate which is at 4.75%; this decision might also affect the AUD/USD exchange rate and consequently the prices of major commodities including crude oil and gold (see here last rate decision);
  2. Tuesday 20th of September 10:00 – Euro Zone 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 August 2011 the ZEW indicator for Germany declined by 22.5 points (see here the recent report);
  3. Tuesday 20th of September 13:30 – U.S. Building Permits: The recent report showed an improvement as the adjusted annual rate reached 597,000 building permits in July 2011, which is 3.2% below June’s rate. If this report will continue to show a decline in the building permits rate, it will indicate that the US housing market continues to slowdown (see here the recent review);
  4. Tuesday 20th of September 13:30 – U.S. Housing Starts: The additional figure to be published by the US Census Bureau involves the US housing starts; this figure was historically correlated with gold price – as housing starts declined, gold price usually inclined the following day (even when controlling to the US dollar effect); in the last report the adjusted annual rate reached 604,000 in July 2011, which is 1.5% below June’s rate of 613,000 (see here the recent review);
  5. Tuesday 20th of September 00:50 – Report of Japanese Trade balance: The Japanese trade balance deficit for July 2011 sharply decreased by 33.6% compared with June 2011, to reach 130.500 billion YEN (roughly $1.69 billion) deficit (seasonally adjusted figures). This sharp decrease is mainly due to the increase in exports of 0.8%, and the slight drop in imports of 0.4% during July. Japan is among the leading importing countries of commodities, such as crude oil and gold; its trade balance could provide insight into Japan’s changes in demand goods and services;
  6. Wednesday 21st of September 13:00 – Canadian Core CPI: This report will refer to the core consumer price index changes during August 2011 that excludes the most volatile components such as prices of energy, fruit and vegetables. According to the recent Canadian statistics report for July 2011, the CPI rose by 2.7% in 12 month up to July – this is a lower rate than in June, in which there was a 3.1% growth rate in 12 months; the core CPI excluding food and energy grew by only 1.2% from July 2010 to July 2011 – lower than the 1.4% increase during the 12 months up to June (annual rate). The main reason for the growth in general CPI was the hike in energy prices that advanced by 12.9% during the 12 months up to July 2011;
  7. Wednesday 21st of September 15:00 – U.S. Existing Home Sales: This report will show the major changes in U.S. existing home sales during August 2011; in the recent report related to July there was a drop in number of homes sold: in July, the seasonally adjusted annual rate reached 4.67 million home sales compared with an annual rate of 4.84 million home sales in June 2011, a 3.5% drop, but a 21% increase from the 3.86 million home sales (annual rate) in July 2010 (see here the recent review);
  8. Wednesday 21st of September 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 September 16th; last week, the US petroleum & oil stockpiles sharply fell by 5.6 million barrels and reached 1,779.2 million barrels (see here the recent crude oil market review);
  9. Wednesday 21st of September 19:15 – FOMC Meeting: in the recent rate decision from last month the Fed decided to keep the interest rates low at least until mid-2013. In the upcoming meeting the Federal Open Market Committee will continue its deliberations of the next step the Fed should take, if any, to help jump start the US economy. In particular, will there be another quantitative easing plan. Many speculate that the Fed won’t issue another plan (see here previous meeting minutes). This meeting will be extended over two days;
  10. Thursday 22nd of September 09:00 – Euro Zone Manufacturing PMI: In the last report regarding August 2011, the Euro Zone ManufacturingPMI fell below the 50 point mark for the first time in nearly two years to reach 49.0 for August. This report will provide an indicator to the economic growth of the Euro zone economy and could affect the Euro/USD exchange rate consequently commodities prices;
  11. Thursday 22nd of September 13:30 – Core Eetails Sales Canada (July): This report shows the main changes that occurred in the retails sales in Canada during July 2011. It may affect the USD/CAD exchange rate. In the previous report pertaining June 2011, retails sales inclined by 0.7% to $37.8 billion; in volume terms the sales grew during the month by 1.6%. the largest increase among sub sectors was in the motor vehicles that rose by 3.4%; gasoline station sales declined by 1.3% during June 2011 (see here the full report);
  12. Thursday 22nd of September 13:30 – Department of Labor Report – U.S. Unemployment Claims: For the week ending on September 10th, initial claims rose by 11,000 to 428,000 claims; for the week ending on September 3rd, the number of insured unemployment was 3.726 million, a decrease of 12,000 compared with the previous week’s (see here my recent review on the US Labor market);
  13. Thursday 22nd of September 15:30 – EIA report about Natural Gas Storage: The EIA will publish its U.S. natural gas stocks, production and consumption report for the week ending on September 16th. In the recent report, natural gas storage rose by 87 Bcf to 3,112 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states – the highest stock level since December 24th, 2011 (see here my recent natural gas storage review);
  14. Friday 23rd of September 19:00 – ECB Conference Trichet Speaks:  following the recent announcement of the ECB along with other central banks, Trichet might provide some insight in the upcoming speech about the next rate decision; Trichet will address in his upcoming speech the economic stability of the Euro Area, the recent depreciation of the Euro and the ongoing debt crisis in the Euro Area;
  15. Friday-Sunday 23rd up to 25thof September – World Bank and IMF Mmeeting: The upcoming meeting of the IMF and World Bank will continue to address the financial crisis in Europe and the global economic slowdown.

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