Economic Calendar - 31 May 2010

Here's the Economic Calendar for the week commencing the 31st of May 2010. This week there's more Q1 GDP results from Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and the EU; Australia and Canada also have their central banks meeting to set monetary policy rates this week. Elsewhere there are PMI (Purchasing Manager Index) results due out from China, the EU, UK, and the US. The other key data points are EU retail sales, CPI, and unemployment, and of course nonfarm payrolls in the US (and similar stats in Canada). There's also the G-20 meetings at the end of the week in South Korea.

(More commentary follows the table)

Day	Time (GMT)	Code	Event/Release	Forecast	Previous
MON	1:30	AUD	Current Account Balance (AUD) (1Q)	-16400M	-17459M
MON	3:00	NZD	NBNZ Business Confidence (MAY)		49.5
MON	5:00	JPY	Housing Starts (YoY) (APR)	6.6%	-2.4%
MON	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone CPI Estimate (YoY) (MAY)	1.7%	1.5%
MON	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Business Climate Indicator (MAY)	0.20	0.23
MON	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Economic Confidence (MAY)	100.6	100.6
MON	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Consumer Confidence (MAY F)	-18	-18
MON	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Industrial Confidence (MAY)	-7	-7
MON	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Services Confidence (MAY)	6	5
MON	9:00	CNY	Official Manufacturing PMI	55.5	55.7
MON	10:30	CNY	HSBC Manufacturing PMI		55.4
MON	12:30	CAD	Quarterly GDP Annualized (1Q)	5.8%	5.0%
TUE	1:30	AUD	Retail Sales s.a. (MoM) (APR)	0.3%	0.3%
TUE	4:30	AUD	Reserve Bank of Australia Interest Rate Decision	4.50%	4.50%
TUE	5:45	CHF	Gross Domestic Product (YoY) (1Q)	1.8%	0.6%
TUE	6:00	EUR	German Retail Sales (YoY) (APR)	-0.7%	2.7%
TUE	8:00	EUR	Euro-Zone PMI Manufacturing (MAY F)	55.9	55.9
TUE	8:30	GBP	Purchasing Manager Index Manufacturing (MAY)	57.8	58.0
TUE	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Unemployment Rate (APR)	10.0%	10.0%
TUE	13:00	CAD	Bank of Canada Interest Rate Decision	0.50%	0.25%
TUE	14:00	USD	ISM Manufacturing (MAY)	59.4	60.4
WED	1:30	AUD	Gross Domestic Product (YoY) (1Q)	2.6%	2.7%
WED	3:00	NZD	ANZ Commodity Price (MAY)		4.9%
WED	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Producer Price Index (YoY) (APR)	2.6%	0.9%
WED	14:00	USD	Pending Home Sales (YoY) (APR)		23.5%
THU	1:30	AUD	Trade Balance (Australian dollar) (APR)	-800M	-2082M
THU	6:00	GBP	Nationwide House Prices n.s.a. (YoY) (MAY)	9.6%	10.5%
THU	8:00	EUR	Euro-Zone PMI (MAY F)	56.0	56.0
THU	8:00	EUR	Euro-Zone PMI Composite (MAY F)	56.2	56.2
THU	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Retail Sales (YoY) (APR)	-0.1%	-0.1%
THU	14:00	USD	ISM Non-Manufacutring Composite (MAY)	55.8	55.4
FRI	4:00	USD	G-20 meeting in South Korea
FRI	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone GDP s.a. (QoQ) (1Q P)	0.2%	0.2%
FRI	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone GDP s.a. (YoY) (1Q P)	0.5%	0.5%
FRI	9:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Government Expenditure (QoQ) (1Q P)	0.3%	-0.1%
FRI	11:00	CAD	Net Change in Employment (MAY)	20.0K	108.7K
FRI	11:00	CAD	Unemployment Rate (MAY)	8.0%	8.1%
FRI	12:30	USD	Change in Non-Farm Payrolls (MAY)	500K	290K
FRI	12:30	USD	Unemployment Rate (MAY)	9.8%	9.9%
FRI	14:00	CAD	Ivey Purchasing Managers Index (MAY)	59.5	58.7

Starting off the GDP updates, Australia will be an interesting one as the lucky country skirted around the recession with only one quarter of negative growth and has been by far the fastest advanced economy on the monetary policy front. Expectations are for 2.6% year on year growth (2.7% in Q4 2009). The other key GDP updates will be Canada (expected to record a 5.8% annualised quarterly growth rate... or 1.45% if you don't annualize it - and you shouldn't!). There's also updates from Switzerland and the EU - expected to be in line with initial estimates. The other big one that threatens to slip under the radar is India - due out on Monday.

The other main area of interest will be the updates to PMIs in the US (manufacturing and non-manufacturing) the main manufacturing ISM PMI is expected to come in at 59.4 vs 60.4 in April. Another key one to watch will be the Chinese PMI - both the HSBC and CLFP China PMI indices are out this week; the official PMI is expected to come in at 55.5; basically flat on last month of 55.7... but any surprises will need to be watched closely given the backdrop there. The EU is also due to release its activity indexes, and these will be interesting given the fiscal challenges there e.g. Spain losing its AAA rating, and the broader growing risks around sovereign default and the Euro.

On the employment front the US has nonfarm payrolls, and it is widely expected to be a bumper month with consensus forecasts seeing 500k new jobs added (much will be census related), it will be very telling to dig into the details when the release comes out. Canada is also due to release its employment figures and is expected to show a 20k increase. Meanwhile the EU is expected to report the unemployment rate for April as an unchanged 10%.

On the policy front, there's the G-20 meetings in South Korea. These will be interesting to casually monitor to see if they come out with anything tangible, and see what progress they're making on existing initiatives e.g. preventing protectionism, exit strategies, etc. The situation in Europe will no doubt be on the agenda, and the rising tensions with North Korea will no doubt weigh on participants minds. On Monetary policy the RBA is expected to hold fire this time around at 4.50% (as noted previously), meanwhile Canada is expected to become the first G7 country to lift interest rates with a rise of 25 basis points to 0.50% on the cards, as the Canadian economy shows commodity and fiscal responsibility driven resilience...

So as always, have a great week, watch out for surprises, 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

Article Source: http://www.econgrapher.com/31may-calendar.html