Weekly Outlook for 26-30 December

The last week of the year brings few news items on the agenda and will probably be with a slow trading week. That being said there are several important financial news items that may affect forex and commodities prices; some of the items include: U.S. pending home sales report, Japan’s minutes of the last rate decision; Euro Area monetary development. Here is an economic news calendar for the week of December 26th to December 30th that highlights the main news items related to the U.S., Japan and Europe.   

(All times GMT):

  1. Monday 26th of December tentative – Bank of Japan –Minutes of last Monetary Policy Meeting: following the recent policy meeting and rate decision from last week, in which the BOJ  decided to kept the interest rate unchanged at 0 to 0.1 percent, this report will present the minutes of the recent meeting. This report could offer some insight into BOJ’s monetary policy and its next steps; this news may affect the forex market and commodities markets as Japan is among the leading countries in importing commodities such as gold, crude oil and natural gas;
  2. Tuesday 27th of December 15:00 – U.S Consumer Confidence: in the previous report, the consumer confidence index rallied in November compared to October. The current expectations are that this index may slightly rise in the December report seeing that the recent news on the U.S. economy was positive and shows signs of recovery; this report could affect commodities markets including the natural gas market;
  3. Wednesday 28th of December 10:30 – KOF Economic Barometer: this report offers a forecast of the Swiss economy in the months to come. In the recent press release, the report predicted that the Swiss Economy is headed towards a stagnation in 2012;
  4. Thursday 29th of December– Preliminary CPI in Germany: This monthly report will present the changes in the annual rate of consumer price index of the leading economy in Europe for December 2011. In the recent report of November,  the annual growth rate of the CPI is 2.4% in annual terms compared with November 2010; this rate hasn’t changed compared with the October 2011 CPI;
  5. Thursday 29th of December 09:00 – Monetary Developments in the Euro Area: This monthly report will demonstrate the development of the M3, M1 and loans to private sector in the Euro area during November 2011. In the previous October report, the annual growth rate for M3 sharply fell to 2.6%. The M1 also declined to 1.7%. On the other hand, the annual growth rate of loans to private sector grew to 2.7% in October. If the M1 and M3 will continue to declined in November it could serve as another indicator for the slowdown in the  Euro Area inflation and  may affect ECB’s upcoming interest rate decision (see here the last report);
  6. Thursday 29th of December 13:30 – Department of Labor Report – U.S. Unemployment Claims: initial claims decreased by 4,000 to 364,000 claims for the week ending on December 17th; the number of insured unemployment sharply declined by 79k to 3.546 million during the week of December 10th; the upcoming report may affect forex and commodities prices;
  7. Thursday 29th of December 15:00 – U.S. Pending Home Sales: This report shows the major changes in pending home sales in the U.S. for November 2011; in the recent October report the pending home sales index sharply inclined by 10.4% compared with September’s index. This report will be another indicator for the economic progress of American real estate market;
  8. Friday 30th of December 2:00– China Manufacturing PMI: this index will cover 800 companies in 20 industries in China; according to the HSBC Manufacturing PMI report regarding November the Manufacturing PMI continued to decline and reached 47.7 which is a 32 month low and sharply lower than the October index of 51.; this index indicates the changes in China’s manufacturing sectors growth rate; if this downward trend will continue, this may also adversely affect commodities prices; (see here last China’s GDP report).

 

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