Weekly forecast for 28 March- 1 April

Here is a weekly forecast for Match 28th to April 1st presenting the main news items, reports and events scheduled for this week related to US, Canada, Australia and Europe.

In addition to the reports that might affect the commodities markets, there is the ongoing war in Libya, the uprising in additional Arab countries such as Yemen and Syria and the aftermath of the tsunami and earthquake in Japan. These news items will continue to be among the major news events that might affect the financial markets and commodities’ prices such as oil and gas prices (see here for more on the recent news update on these events and their relation to crude oil prices).

As the week will progress, Trading Energy will continue to update on the progress of these events these and examine their affect (if any) on energy and precious metal’s prices such as crude oil price and gold prices.

(all times GMT):

 

  1. Monday 28th of March 16.00 – ECB president’s speech: Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, will talk at the Academy of Science, Paris. In his recent talk from last week, the topic was: the future of risk management and regulation;
  2. Tuesday 29th of March 9.30 – Great Britain Balance of Payments: This quarterly report will show the changes in current account of GB for the fourth quarter 2010. As of the third quarter 2010, the UK current account showed a deficit of 9.6 billion pounds an increase from the second quarter; mainly due to rise in deficit of trade in goods (see here previous report);
  3. Wednesday 30th of March 15.30 – EIA report about Crude oil inventories: The EIA (Energy Information Administration) will issue its weekly report on the changes in gasoline and crude oil prices in the U.S. Last week’s report showed petroleum stocks fell for the sixth straight week; last week they have declined by 0.1%, a decrease of 0.9 million barrels of crude oil to reach 1,765 million barrels – the lowest level since March 2010 (see here my previous review on crude oil stocks);
  4. Thursday 31st of March 13.30 – Department of Labor report – US unemployment claims: For the week ending on Mar 19th, the report showed a fall in initial claims by 5,000, to reach 382,000 claims; the insured unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.0% for the week ending on Mar 12th; finally, the number of insured unemployment was 3.721 million, a drop of 2,000 compare to the previous week;
  5. Thursday 31st of March 13:30– Canada GDP by industry: This monthly report will present the changes in major industrial sectors for January 2011. In the last report pertaining fourth quarter 2010, the real gross domestic product rose by 0.8%, mainly due to the oil and gas extraction, which accounted for nearly 40% of the overall increase (for the full previous report);
  6. Thursday 31st of March 15.30 – EIA report about Natural gas storage: The EIA will also issue its weekly report on the changes in natural gas storage, production and consumption in the US for this passing week. In the recent EIA report natural gas storage fell for the eighteenth straight week, by 0.4%, or 6 billion cubic feet to reach a total of 1,612 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states (see here my previous natural gas storage review);
  7. Friday 1st of April 6.30 – Australia Commodities Prices – Reserve Bank of Australia: This monthly report will present the change in March 2011 of an index of the main commodities’ prices among the major commodities Australia exports such as coal, iron ore, gold and crude oil in Australian dollars terms. In the last report about February 2011, the index rose by 2.2%, after it rising by 5.3% in January. The rise in February is mainly due to price hikes in iron ore and coal followed by crude oil and wheat (see here the last report);
  8. Friday 1st of April 10.00AM – Euro zone unemployment rate: The monthly report presents the seasonally adjusted data of February 2011 unemployment rate in Euro zone. For the month of January, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 9.9%, which was 0.1 percent points below the unemployment rate during December 2010 and during January 2010. In the EU27, 23.0418 million people, of whom 15.775 million were in Euro area, were unemployed during January 2011. This economic indictor shows there is little improvement so far in the EU zone (see here the last repot).
  9. Friday 1st of April 13.30PM – US unemployment rate report & non-farm employment change: This monthly report shows the changes in US employment during March 2011. In the previous report pertaining February 2011, the US unemployment rate reached 8.9% a minor drop of 0.1 percent point compare to January 2011. The number of non-farm payroll employment increased by 192 thousand people in February (see my last review on the US employment report);

 

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