We enter a relatively busy week in terms of economic events and data releases. In Canada, the nation’s central bank gathers to decide on interest rates. No change in policy is anticipated, but we expect the Bank to adopt a more optimistic narrative this time. In the UK, jobs and inflation data will be closely watched as investors try to assess the likelihood for a BoE hike in May. We get inflation data from Japan, Canada and New Zealand as well.
Monday is a relatively quiet day in terms of economic data and releases. The only top-tier data set we get is the US retail sales for March. Headline sales are expected to have rebounded to +0.4% mom after a minor slide of 0.1% in February, while core sales are forecast to have risen 0.2% mom, the same pace as previously. That said, having in mind that both the Conference Board and University of Michigan consumer sentiment indices for the month declined somewhat, we view the risks surrounding the forecasts as tilted somewhat to the downside. The New York Empire State manufacturing PMI for April is also coming out.
On Tuesday, during the Asian morning, the RBA releases the minutes from its latest RBA policy meeting. The statement of that meeting was almost identical with that of the previous one and thus, we don’t expect the minutes to include any major surprises. However, given that we saw again the part saying that wage growth appears to have troughed, something that was not included in previous statements apart from the last two, we would be eager to see whether there is any reference on that front in the minutes. It was strange to us that the minutes of the previous meeting did not reveal any discussion around the matter although the part appeared for the first time in that meeting’s statement.
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