This week will be a critical one with regards to Brexit. On Wednesday, EU officials will hold an emergency summit to discuss the matter and investors will be sitting on the edge of their seats in anticipation of whether the EU will allow another extension to the Article 50 in order to avoid a disorderly divorce on Friday. With regards to central banks, the ECB decides on monetary policy and we expect Draghi and co. to reiterate that the risks surrounding the Euro area outlook remain to the downside. We also get inflation data from the US, China, Norway and Sweden.
Monday and Tuesday appear to be relatively light days in terms of economic data and releases. Thus, with Friday, the new Brexit day, drawing closer, investors’ attention is likely to stay fixed on headlines and developments surrounding that front.
Just for the record, today, we have the US factory orders for February, as well as Canada’s housing starts for March and building permits for February. US factory orders are anticipated to have declined 0.5% mom after rising just 0.1% in January, while no forecasts are currently available for the Canadian data. On Tuesday, we only get the US JOLTs Job Openings for February, and the consensus suggests a modest slowdown, to 7.57mn from 7.58mn in January.
On Wednesday, the spotlight is likely to fall on an emergency EU summit dedicated on Brexit. With her deal being defeated thrice in Parliament, and MPs themselves failing to agree on any alternative, UK PM Theresa May decided on Friday to officially request from the EU another extension to Article 50, up until June 30th. However, EU officials insisted that she has to present a viable plan on how the UK intends to...
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