Weekly Outlook for October 24-28

As we are entering the last week of October all eyes will be set towards the EU summits that will be on Sunday and Wednesday; there are additional events and reports for the upcoming week that could influence the financial community include: U.S. third quarter GDP, U.S. Consumer confidence report, U.S. Core durable goods, Monetary Developments in the Euro Area, and BOJ rate decisions. Here is an economic news calendar for the week of October 24th to October 28th that highlights the main news items and reports related to the U.S., Canada, Japan and Europe.   

(all times GMT):

  1. Sunday 23rd of October All day – EU Summit: This summit will revolve the current debt crisis in Europe, in which the EU leaders will try and reach an agreement about the actions needed to take in order to solve the current open issues including, among others, the Greek debt, and the liquidity problems of major European banks. If there will be some ground breaking news this might affect the financial community and thus influence forex and commodities traders. But there those who doubt and think that the EU summit will fall short as it did in the past;
  2. Monday 24th of October 09:00 – Euro Area Manufacturing PMI: In the last report regarding August 2011, the Euro Zone Manufacturing PMI remained below the 50 point mark and reached 48.4. This report will provide an indicator to the economic growth of the Euro zone economy and could influence the Euro/USD exchange rate consequently major commodities prices;
  3. Monday 24th of October 23:00 – ECB Press Conference Trichet Speaks: Jean Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, will probably refer to the recent EU Summit regarding the debt crisis in Europe. This speech may affect not only the Euros to US dollar exchange rate, but also major commodities prices such as gold price;
  4. Tuesday 25th of October 13:30 – Core Retails Sales Canada (August 2011): This report presents the changes in the retails sales in Canada during August 2011. It may affect the USD/CAD exchange rate. In the previous report pertaining July 2011, retails sales slipped by 0.6% to $37.5 billion; in volume terms the sales shrunk during the month by 0.9%. gasoline station sales remained nearly unchanged during July 2011 (see here the full report);
  5. Tuesday 25th of October 14:00 – Canada Overnight Rate: The Bank of Canada will publish its decision regarding the overnight interest rate, which remained unchanged at 1% as of last month. The BOC may continue its policy of keeping the interest rate unchanged, despite the increase in inflation rate to 3.2% (in annul terms). This decision may affect the CAD/USD; there are strong correlations between Canadian dollar and crude oil prices as Canada is a major exporter of crude oil to the U.S.;
  6. Tuesday 25th of October 15:00 – U.S Consumer Confidence: in the previous report, the consumer confidence index remained nearly unchanged in September compared with August’s index. The current expectations are that this index may continue to drop in the October report; this report could affect commodities traders including the natural gas market;
  7. Wednesday 26th of October All day – EU Summit: Following the summit meeting on Sunday, this summit will continue for the second day as France and Germany will try to reach an agreement about the actions needed to take;
  8. Wednesday 26th of October tentative – Bank of Japan – Rate Decision and Monetary Policy Statement: This statement will present Bank of Japan’s rate decision and other monetary related decisions. In the recent statement the bank left the interest rate at 0 to 0.1 percent. The upcoming statement could offer some insight to the economic outlook of Japan and the next steps the BOJ may take to help the Japanese economy rising. Japan is among the leading countries in importing commodities such as gold, crude oil and natural gas;
  9. Wednesday 26th of October 13:30 – U.S 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 during September. This report indirectly shows the changes in U.S. demand for goods including major commodities such as crude oil. During August 2011, manufactured durable goods slipped by $0.2 billion or 0.1% to $201.8 billion; Non-defense new orders for capital goods increased by $3.9 billion or 5.2% to $78.1 billion (for the full report);
  10. Wednesday 26th of October 15:00 – U.S. New Home Sales: This report will present the changes in the real estate market during September 2011 and the new home sales in the U.S.; in the recent report (August 2011), the sales of new homes reached an annual rate of 295,000 – a decrease of 2.3% compared with the number of new homes sold in July 2011, but it was 6.1% above the home sales rate in August 2011; if this downward trend will continue, it may only further indicate a slowdown in the U.S real estate market and may affect commodities prices;
  11. Wednesday 26th of October 15:30 – EIA Report on Crude Oil Stockpiles: the EIA (Energy Information Administration) will publish its weekly report on the U.S Petroleum market for the week ending on October 21st; last week, the US petroleum & oil stockpiles sharply fell by 10.9 million barrels to 1,769.1 million barrels (see here the recent oil stockpiles review);
  12. Thursday 27th of October 09:00 – Monetary Developments in the Euro Area: This monthly report will present the changes in the M3, M1 and loans to private sector in the Euro area during September 2011. In the previous August 2011 report, the annual growth rate for M3 sharply inclined to 2.8%. The M1 also shot up to 1.7%. The annual growth rate of loans to private sector slightly inclined from 2.4% in July to 2.6% in August. If the M1 and M3 will continue to rise in September it could serve as another indicator of an expected rise in Euro Area CPI and  may affect ECB’s upcoming interest rate decision (see here the last report);
  13. Thursday 27th of October 13:30 – Department of Labor Report – U.S. Unemployment Claims: initial claims declined by 6,000 to 403,000 claims for the week ending on October 15th; the number of insured unemployment reached 3.719 million, an increase of 25,000 during the week of October 8th; this report could affect forex and commodities traders;
  14. Thursday 27th of October 13:30 – Advanced US GDP 3Q 2011 Report: This will be the first estimate of the third quarter 2011 real GDP of U.S. In the 2Q2011 the GDP growth rate was 1.3%, compared with 0.4% increase at 1Q2011. This shows a very low growth rate for the US’s GDP and a slow down in the economic activity in the US compared to 2010. This news could have substantial effect on forex and commodities traders (for the final estimate of 2Q GDP).
  15. Thursday 27th of October 15:00 – U.S. pending Home Sales: This report shows the major changes in pending home sales in the U.S. for September 2011; in the recent August report there was decrease in the pending home sales index by 1.2% compared with July’s index. This will be another indicator for the economic progress of the real estate market in the US;
  16. Thursday 27th of October 15:30 – EIA report on U.S. Natural Gas Market: The EIA will publish its U.S. natural gas stocks, production and consumption report for the week ending on October 21st. In the recent report, natural gas storage rose for the twenty-eighth straight week by 2.9% or by 103 Bcf to 3,624 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states (see here my recent natural gas storage review);
  17. Friday 28th of October 13:30 – U.S. Employment Cost Index: This report will show the changes in the compensation costs for civilian workers during the past three months (see here the last report);
  18.  Friday 28th of October 13:30 – U.S. Personal Income and Outlays (September 2011): This report will present the monthly changes in the personal spending and income in September (see here the recent report);

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