It’s another important week for the US, with consumer confidence, durable goods orders and PCE inflation data in focus. The data and event calendar is light in the Eurozone, UK and Switzerland although the expected ruling by the British Supreme Court on the PM’s suspension of parliament could create some (temporary) noise. Mid-week the action moves to the New Zealand and the RBNZ’s policy meeting.
Monday 23rd September
Eurozone: Composite PMI (September, preliminary data)
Tuesday 24th September
Eurozone: German IFO business climate index (September). The German ZEW economic sentiment index improved slightly in September, albeit from a very low base, and analysts also expect a small improvement in the IFO. But the risk remains that the German economy was in recession in Q3.
United States: Conference Board Consumer confidence (September). Elevated US consumer confidence has been a key pillar of the US economy’s resilience and analysts forecast only a small downturn in confidence to 133.8 from 135.1 in August.
New Zealand: Trade balance (August).
Wednesday 25th September
New Zealand: RBNZ policy rate meeting, statement and press conference. The consensus forecast is that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, which has already cut its policy rate 75bp since early May, will leave rates unchanged at 1.00%, particularly given the Kiwi Dollar’s collapse in the past two months. But the RBNZ has already surprised markets once this year (when it cut rates 50bp) so this meeting should get a fair bit of attention.
Thursday 26th September
United States: Q2 GDP (third reading)
Friday 27th September
United States: Durable goods orders (August)
United States: Personal income, spending and inflation (August). Core Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) inflation – one of the Fed’s key measures of US inflation – was unchanged in July at 1.6% yoy but analysts expect an up-tick to a seven-month high of 1.8% yoy in August. If this forecast proves accurate it may at the margin temper the market’s current pricing of another 25bp Fed rate cut before year-end.
