Economic data for the week ahead will slightly take a back seat with only a few central bank meetings lined up. The Swiss National Bank will be holding its quarterly monetary policy meeting this week. The 3-month LIBOR rate is expected to remain unchanged. Later, the Norges bank will be holding its monthly monetary policy meeting.
Norges bank is expected to keep monetary policy unchanged but the market expectations are pointing to the fact that the Norges bank could potentially look at sending hawkish signals for the markets. Expectations are that the Norges bank could start to hike rates as early as September this year.
On the economic front, data from the U.S. will be dominated by the producer price and consumer price index. While producer prices are expected to rise sharply, inflation is expected to remain largely stable. Retail sales data will also be coming out this week.
Here’s a quick recap of the key economic events due this week.
U.S. Inflation data and retail sales before next week’s FOMC meeting
The week ahead will a lot of inflation-related data, retail sales and regional manufacturing index reports. Consumer price index data will, of course, take the top spot with the data coming out just a week before the FOMC meeting.
According to the economists polled, the headline inflation in the United States is expected to rise at a slower pace of 0.2% on the month in February. This marks a modest decline compared to 0.5% increase registered in January. Core inflation rate is expected to rise just 0.2% compared to the 0.3% increase seen the month before. The annual inflation rate in the U.S. is thus forecast to rise 2.2% on the year, slightly higher than the 2.1% increase seen previously. Core inflation data is expected to remain unchanged at 1.8%.
Retail sales report for the week ahead will show a 0.3% increase on the headline which is expected to reverse the declines of 0.3% seen the month before. Core retail sales excluding autos is expected to rise 0.3%, up from a flat reading the month before.
