Weekly outlook for June 13-17

Here is an economic news calendar for the week of June 13th to 17th that highlights the main news items and reports related to U.S., Canada, Japan, China and Europe.

(all times GMT):

  1. Monday 13th of June 15.00 – ECB conference Trichet speaks: Following the recent press conference of ECB, in which the rate remained unchanged,  Jean Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank will give a speech in London; he will probably refer to ECB’s monetary policy, the EURO and perhaps even refer to the Greek debt crisis;
  2. Monday 13th of June 3.00 – Chinese CPI: The ongoing rising inflation in China is likely to affect People Bank of China’s monetary policy as it will try to curb the inflation growth; despite the measures taken by PBC in recent months including raising the interest rate, the consumer price index is still rising above the China’s inflation target.  During April, the annual rate reached 5.3%, a very moderate fall compared with an annual rate of 5.4% during March 2011;
  3. Monday 13th of June 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 last statement the bank kept the interest rate at its low level of 0 to 0.1 percent. This statement could offer some insight to the economic progress of Japan following the recent tsunami turmoil back in March. Japan is among the leading countries in importing commodities such as gold, crude oil and natural gas;
  4. Tuesday 14th of June 13.30 – U.S. producer price index news: This monthly report will show the progress in the PPI during May, i.e. the inflation rate from producers stand point. In the previous report regarding April, this index for finished goods inclined by 0.8%, following a rise of 0.7% during March; this index inclined mainly due to the rise in finished energy by 2.5% during April;
  5. Wednesday 15th of June 15.30 – EIA report about Crude oil inventories: The EIA (Energy Information Administration) will publish a weekly report on the U.S Petroleum prices and oil stocks; in the last report, U.S. Petroleum and oil stocks moderately inclined during last week by 1.47 million barrels, or by 0.08%. For the week ending on June 3rd crude oil stocks reached 1,789 million barrels – the highest level since February 11th, 2011 (see here the recent crude oil market review);
  6. Thursday 16th of June 10:00 – Euro Area CPI and core monthly inflation (May): In the last report regarding April 2011 the annual inflation rate was 2.8%, up from 2.7% during Match 2011 for Euro Area, which is still above the target inflation of ECB. The expectations in the upcoming CPI report for May 2011 are of an additional growth in CPI; if this will be the case, this might be another news items that will tilt the scales towards raising the interest rate in next month’s ECB rate decision. This news might also affect the Euro currency and consequentially major commodities prices including crude oil and gold (for the full previous report);
  7. Thursday 16th of June 13.30 – U.S. Building Permits: The recent report didn’t show well on the progress of the housing market in the U.S. as the number of building permits during April declined by 4% compared with March 2011 and was 12.8% below the number of authorized permits in April 2010 (see here the recent report);
  8. Thursday 16th of June 13.30 – Department of Labor report – U.S. unemployment claims: For the week ending on June 4th, initial claims very moderately increased by 1,000, as it reached 427,000 claims; the insured unemployment rate declined by 0.1 percent point to 2.9% for the week ending on May 28th; and the number of insured unemployment was 3.676 million, a decrease of 71,000 compared with the previous week’s. (see here my recent review on the US Labor market );
  9. Thursday 16th of June 15.30 – EIA report about Natural gas storage: the natural gas continue to heat up with prices rising; the EIA will publish its U.S. natural gas stocks, production and consumption report for the week ending on June 10th. In the recent report, natural gas storage inclined for the ninth straight week, last week by 3.8% or 80 Bcf; as a result,  the natural gas storage inclined to 2.187 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states (see here my recent natural gas storage review).

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