March data for manufacturing and services Purchasing Managers Indices – useful forward looking indicators of economic activity – will dominate this week, with March data for Eurozone inflation (on Wednesday) and US employment also of note.
Tuesday 3rd April
United States: FOMC Members Kashkari and Brainard speak
Wednesday 4th April
Eurozone: March CPI-inflation (preliminary). Headline CPI-inflation fell to a 14-month low in February of 1.1% year-on-year and markets are looking for a rebound to 1.4% year-on-year in March. Weak Eurozone inflation is seemingly stopping the European Central Bank from sounding more hawkish and the Euro is likely to remain sensitive to weaker-than-expected inflation data.
United States: March ADP employment. This is the precursor to the headline-grabbing non-farm payrolls data (out on Friday) and the analyst estimate is for another healthy increase in private sector employment of 210,000. But only a significant data surprise is likely to move markets more focused on wages than employment per se.
United States: FOMC Members Bullard and Mester speak
United States: March non-manufacturing ISM. Given the importance of the service sector in the US this data point should get some attention, particularly after the index for manufacturing activity slowed in March to 59.3 from 60.8 in February.
Thursday 5th April
United Kingdom: March services PMI. Given the importance of the UK service sector (70% of the economy), this data point should also get some attention. The manufacturing PMI was broadly unchanged in March suggesting that economic activity may have been stable in Q1 2018.
United States: FOMC Members Bostic speaks
Friday 6th April
United States: March labour market data. Focus tends to be on the change in non-farm payrolls but with the US unemployment rate already at a multi-year low of4.1%, the real question is whether wage and earnings growth continued to tick up. Equity markets have in recent months been quite sensitive to upward surprises in wage growth data.
United States: Federal Reserve Chairperson Powell speaks
Note:
FOMC is Federal Open Market Committee (including the voting members of the Federal Reserve)
qoq is quarter-on-quarter
yoy is year-on-year
