Econ Grapher - Economic Calendar - 19 April 2010

Here's the Economic Calendar for the week commencing 19 April 2010. The key data out this week is UK GDP, New Zealand CPI, Bank of Canada Monetary Policy decision, EU consumer confidence, and US home sales data and durable goods orders. But also on the radar this week is the April 2010 IMF World Economic Outlook (and the IMF Global Financial Stability report, due out the day before) which is always a tremendous resource for global economic analysis (the 3rd and 4th analytical chapters are already up here and look at unemployment dynamics during recessions and recoveries, and transitioning out of sustained current account surpluses). Also in the IMF sphere are the G20 and IMF/World Bank meetings on Friday and Saturday this week.

(More commentary follows the table)

Day	Time (GMT)	Code	Event/Release	Forecast	Previous
MON	22:45	NZD	Consumer Price Index	2.3%	2.0%
MON	5:00	JPY	Consumer Confidence		40
TUE	13:00	CAD	Bank of Canada i-rate decision	0.3%	0.3%
TUE	8:30	GBP	Consumer Price Index	3.2%	3.0%
TUE	1:30	AUD	RBA Meeting Minutes
WED	8:30	GBP	Jobless Claims Change		-32.3K
WED	8:30	GBP	BoE Meeting Minutes
WED	23:50	JPY	Merchandise Trade Balance	975.4B	649.6B
WED			IMF World Economic Outlook
THU	8:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Government Debt-GDP		69.3%
THU	12:30	USD	Producer Price Index	6.1%	4.4%
THU	14:00	USD	Existing Home Sales	5.6%	-0.6%
THU	14:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Consumer Confidence	(17)	(17)
FRI	8:30	GBP	Gross Dometic Product Q1	0.4%	0.4%
FRI	12:30	CAD	Retail Sales	0.0%	0.7%
FRI	8:00	EUR	German IFO Business Climate	98.7	98.1
FRI	11:00	CAD	Consumer Price Index	1.6%	1.6%
FRI	12:30	USD	Durable Goods Orders	0.1%	0.9%
FRI	14:00	USD	New Home Sales	4.6%	-2.2%
FRI			IMF and G20 Meetings

In some ways the IMF (and G20 meetings) will dominate the headlines this week. The World Economic Outlook will as mentioned be a great resource, and it will be interesting to see what the IMF forecasts for the global economy over the next couple of years. In terms of the meetings exit strategies, trade, global imbalances, financial system reform, tax evasion, and banking regulation. No doubt the EU and US will pull the yuan issue into the meetings too. So while these are usually talk-fests it will be worth reviewing the post-meeting communiqué for anything interesting.

On the economic data front the main even will be UK GDP, some are forecasting year over year growth to approach the zero mark with a second quarter of 0.4% growth. There's also the consumer price index measure of inflation from Canada, UK, and New Zealand - the US also has the producer price index out. All forecasts are for a pick up in inflation, but only marginally; though inflationary pressure is broadly likely to resurface later in the year.

There's also monetary policy decision meeting minutes released by the Bank of England and the Reserve Bank of Australia. The BoE report will be somewhat ho-hum, but the RBA report will be well worth a read as the bank brings monetary policy back to neutral. Some RBA officials have noted that the rate is approaching neutral levels after five 25 basis point hikes to 4.25% off the record low emergency settings. Also in monetary policy is the Bank of Canada's interest rate decision; the bank has previously noted it would wait until at least Q2 before raising the rate, it may not be this time, but Canada could be next in line for some tightening.

Stay tuned for updates...

Sources
DailyFX www.dailyfx.com/calendar
Forex Pros www.forexpros.com/economic-calendar/
Forex Factory www.forexfactory.com/calendar.php
Bloomberg www.bloomberg.com
+various statistics websites and central bank websites for verification

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