Weekly outlook for April 18-22

Here is a weekly outlook for April 18th to 22nd presenting the main news items and reports related to US, Canada, Australia and Europe.

During the upcoming week, Trading Energy will continue to report and analyze the events from the Middle East (e.g. Libya) that might affect the energy market.

(all times GMT):

  1. Monday 18th of April 2.30 – Monetary Policy meeting Australia’s Bank : The minutes of the monetary policy meeting of the reserve bank of Australia, in which the board discusses the domestic and international economic conditions and decides on the Bank’s basic interest rate which is currently at 4.75%. The meeting was held back in April 5th, however the minutes are published only two weeks after the meeting;
  2. Tuesday 19th of April 13.00 – Canadian Core CPI: This monthly report presents the main changes in the core consumer price index which excludes the most volatile components such as energy, fruit and vegetables. According to the previous Canadian statistics report for February 2011, the CPI rose by 2.2% in 12 month up to February compared to a 2.3% increase up to January 2011. The main reason for the rise is related to the energy prices that increased by 10.6% during the 12 months up to February 2011;
  3. Wednesday 20th of April 9.30 Bank of England MPC meeting: This will shows the minutes of the last Bank meeting in which it was decided to maintain the basic interest rate at 0.5% and the asset purchase program at 200 billion pounds, as GB’s inflation rate declined from 4.4% (Y2Y) on February to 4.0% on March 2011;
  4. Wednesday 20th of April 15.30 – EIA report about Crude oil inventories: The EIA (Energy Information Administration) will present its weekly report on the recent news related to U.S Petroleum and oil stocks declined by 4.9 million barrels, which is a 0.28% drop compared to the previous week. The stocks reached by April 8th 1,763.9 million barrels. This was the largest withdraw since mid March. (see here my recent review on crude oil stocks);
  5. Thursday 21st of April 13.30 – Department of Labor report – US unemployment claims: For the week ending on April 9th, initial claims increased by 27,000, to reach 412,000 claims; the insured unemployment rate declined by 0.1 percent points and reached 2.9% for the week ending on April 2nd; and the number of insured unemployment was 3.680 million, a decrease of 58,000 compare to the previous week’s number (see here my review on the recent US Labor report);
  6. Thursday 21st of April 15.30 – EIA report about Natural gas storage: the EIA will also issue a weekly report about the recent changes in natural gas storage, production and consumption in the US. In the recent EIA report natural gas storage increased by 1.8%, i.e. an injection of 28 Bcf, as the total storage reached 1,607 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states; the natural gas storage was 10 Bcf above the 5-year average. (see here my recent natural gas storage review);

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