The second trading week of the year will see mostly second tier data from across the major economies after a rather busy start the week before. Still, despite the lack of any key economic events, the focus will be on the speeches from the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and various Fed members. In Australia, retail sales figures will be closely watched while China will be releasing the inflation figures for December. Here’s a brief overview of the key economic events this week.
Fed speech and press conference by President-elect Trump
The lack of any big market moving events this week will be made up for by speeches from various FOMC members including Fed Chair, Janet Yellen during the week alongside a scheduled press conference from President-elect Donald Trump. After winning the U.S. presidential elections in November, this Wednesday’s press briefing will be the first official press conference. While not much is known on what to expect from the press conference, investors will be closely monitoring the press conference for any references to fiscal spending which has contributed a lot to the recent uptick in inflation expectations and the resulting speculative rally.
So far, the President-elect has managed to keep some of the planned jobs from Ford and Carrier being moved to Mexico, in what could be seen as signs of staying true to some of the promises made during his election campaign. Thus, the speculation of an increase in spending is likely to further fuel the rally in the U.S. dollar.
Besides the official press conference, FOMC members will be speaking this week. Speaking engagements include FOMC members, Evans, Harker and a late Thursday speech by Janet Yellen.
On the economic front, retail sales and PPI numbers are expected to come out on Friday.
UK Manufacturing Production; Supreme Court ruling
In the UK, manufacturing and industrial production figures will be released on Wednesday in an otherwise quiet trading week. Manufacturing production declined 0.9% in October while industrial production fell 1.3% on a month over month basis during the same period with most of the declines coming from a decrease in production from the mining and quarrying sectors alongside the maintenance in the oil and gas exploration industry.
