Market movers ahead
- In the US, the key event due this week is Ben Bernanke’s speech at the Jackson Hole conference. Elsewhere, we expect focus to be on initial claims and durable orders for signs of recession.
- In Europe, we expect the flash PMI and the German Ifo to decline further. We expect France to reveal further austerity measures.
- In China, the main scheduled event is the release of the flash estimate for the HSBC manufacturing PMI for August. We estimate a moderate decline.
- In Japan and Switzerland, markets are likely to be watching for further monetary intervention to stem currency appreciation.
- In Sweden, it will be interesting to see how hard consumer and business confidence have been hit.
- In Norway, we expect GDP to show that the Norwegian economy coped relatively well in a quarter with weaker global growth.
Global update
- The global equity sell-off has resumed and bond yields in Germany and US have reached records. Signs of US dollar funding pressure are mounting.
- The ECB continued to support the markets through the bond purchasing programme. Expectations of monetary easing are intensifying in most countries.
- The risk of recession is on the increase. The US Philly Fed manufacturing index declined to levels usually observed when the US economy enters recession.
- In Europe, disappointing growth data was released showing that GDP increased only 0.2% q/q. Germany disappointed as well with growth of 0.1% q/q.
- In Japan, Q2 growth data was not as bad as expected in the wake of the earthquake.
- In the past week, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) signalled that it is still some time away from possible easing monetary policy.
