It’s a heavy calendar this week, including in the US where the focus will be on ISM PMI and labour market data for May. The RBA and ECB are both expected to leave their policy rates unchanged with the focus on forward-guidance. Retail sales data for April are due out in Switzerland, Australia and Eurozone and will not make for pretty reading.
Monday 1st June
Germany, Switzerland: Public holiday.
United States: ISM manufacturing PMI (May). This indicator of economic activity in the US manufacturing sector fell to its weakest level in 11 years but analysts forecast a small rebound from 41.5 to 43.0 in May.
Tuesday 2nd June
Australia: Reserve Bank of Australia policy meeting. Consensus forecast is that the RBA will leave its policy rate at its record-low of 0.25% and the focus will be on forward guidance and on any signs that the RBA is leaning against the Australian Dollar’s ascendancy.
Switzerland: Retail sales (April).
Wednesday 3rd June
Australia: GDP, Q1. This is now “old” data but the extent to which GDP growth slowed in Q1 will provide a starting point for Q2. Consensus forecast is that GDP contracted only 0.3% qoq, following +1.5% qoq in Q4 2019, which would be a very modest contraction compared to other developed economies.
Switzerland: GDP, Q1. Consensus forecast is that GDP contracted 2% qoq, with growth dragged down in part by weak growth in Europe.
Eurozone: German labour market data (May).
United States: ADP private-sector employment (May). This unofficial measure revealed that a record 20.2 million private-sector jobs were lost in April and that a decade of job-creation was wiped out in a month. The consensus forecast is that “only” nine million jobs were lost in May.
United States: ISM non-manufacturing PMI (May).
Thursday 4th June
Australia: Trade balance and retail sales (April). These two data points will give an idea whether economic growth decelerated further in April as has been the case in many major economies.
Switzerland: CPI-inflation (May).
Eurozone: Retail sales (April).
Eurozone: European Central Bank policy meeting, statement and press conference. The ECB is expected to leave its deposit rate unchanged at -0.50%, with markets likely to focus on the central bank’s forward guidance with regards to policy rates and quantitative easing program.
United States: Initial jobless claims (week till 4th June). The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits for the first time has increased by over 41 million in the past 10 weeks but the number of new weekly claims has fallen for nine straight weeks.
Friday 5th June
United States: Labour market data (May). The job destruction in the non-farm sector in May should broadly reflect the ADP data and analysts indeed forecast that 8.25 million Americans lost their jobs in May and that the unemployment rate surged to near 20%. This would be a record high and twice the unemployment rate recorded at the height of the 2009 financial crisis.
