Top 5 Economics Graphs of the Week - 14 May 2011

This week we look at Euro Zone GDP and break out the economic growth results from Germany and France, and gauge how the Euro economies are progressing through the recovery. We also have a brief review of the inflation data from the US, and wrap up with a review of 12 monetary policy decisions of various central banks from around the world over the past week.

1. EU GDP
The euro area (EA17) reported Q1 GDP growth of 0.8% q/q, up from 0.3% in Q4 2010, bringing annual GDP growth to 2.5%, up from 2.0% in Q4 2010. Meanwhile the EU27 also recorded quarterly GDP growth of 0.8%, up from 0.2% in Q4 2010, bringing annual growth to 2.5%, up from 2.2% in Q4 last year. The worst performing economies on a quarterly basis were Portugal (-0.7%), Cyprus (0%), Italy (0.2%) and Latvia (0.2%). While the best performing economies on a quarterly basis were Lithuania (3.5%), Estonia (2.1%), and Germany (1.5%), with 1% growth rates in Belgium, France, Austria, and Slovakia. Thus for now, growth is relatively strong in the Euro region, in spite of the fiscal challenges on the fringe, but there are risks to the outlook.

2. German GDP
Germany reported Q1 GDP growth of 1.5% q/q, up from 0.4% in Q4 2010 (market consensus around 0.9%). On an annual basis the German economy expanded 4.8%, faster than the 3.8% recorded in Q4 last year (market consensus around 4.2%). Germany continues to prove its worth as a key growth engine in the EU, benefiting from a strong manufacturing and export base, as well as a sound financial system and strong government balances. Philipp Rosler, economics minister in Germany, said "Germany is the growth motor among the industrial nations - and not just in Europe".

3. France GDP
The French economy grew 1.0% in the first quarter of this year, faster than the 0.3% recorded in the previous quarter. On an annual basis GDP expanded 2.2%, up from 1.4% in Q4 2010. The French economy is slowly gathering pace, with the manufacturing and services sectors strong, yet much of the growth this quarter came from changes in inventories. Household spending and fixed capital formation also contributed positively, while net exports were a negative. French finance minister Christine Lagarde noted that Q2 GDP is likely to be weaker, but is still comfortable with a 2.0% growth target for 2011.

4. US Inflation
The US reported annual headline inflation of 3.2% in April, up from 2.7% in March as the CPI rose 0.4% m/m. Core inflation crept up to 1.3% in April from 1.2% the previous month, with core CPI up 0.2% m/m. Accelerating nflation around the world at the moment is larely a product of rising commodity prices - especially energy commodities. In the near term there may be some more moderation in commodities prices, but I don't see oil falling far and fast in the near term. What was a mild concern was the incidence of broader 'second round' inflation effects, with core inflation steadily rising. That said, while both headline and core inflation are rising, neither are accelerating at a historically excessive rate, core is still relatively low compared to the last 10 years.

5. Monetary Policy Review
The past week saw 12 monetary policy decisions. Those that increased interest rates were: Azerbaijan +25bps to 5.25% Poland +25bps to 4.25% Norway +25bps to 2.25% Peru +25bps to 4.25% and Chile +50bps to 5.00%. Meanwhile Ghana was the only country that eased policy, cutting rates 50bps to 13.00%. Those that held rates unchanged were: Indonesia 6.75% South Africa 5.50% Latvia 3.50% and South Korea 3.00%. Besides interest rate changes two economies lifted reserve requirements: Uruguay lifted its required reserve ratios 300bps to 15%, while China increase its RRR by 50 basis points to an average 21% for large banks.

Summary

A look at euro region GDP results showed the economic recovery is still strongly on track for the most part, but with due divergence and weakness at the periphery. While there remains downside risks to the outlook from economies like Portugal, Ireland and Greece, the outlook is still strong with the key economies like France, and especially Germany growing strongly. Elsewhere, the US saw an acceleration of inflation in April, but not yet at a worrying pace. On the monetary policy front the theme of emerging market tightening continued, and saw increasing involvement of developed economies in the monetary policy normalization process.

Sources:
1. EuroStat epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu
2. EuroStat epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu
3. EuroStat epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu
4. Bureau of Labour Statistics www.bls.gov
5. CentralBankNews.info www.centralbanknews.info

Article Source: http://www.econgrapher.com/top5graphs14may11.html

Economic Calendar: China Data, U.S. Inflation, and EU GDP

Here's the Economic Calendar for the week commencing the 8th of May 2011. This week features China's monthly economic data release with PPI, CPI, industrial production, retail sales, fixed asset investment, and international trade stats due out from the world's second largest economy. Elsewhere there is an emphasis on inflation data with CPI due from Germany, France, Switzerland, and the US, there's also PPI data due from those countries. The other key data pieces will be eurozone GDP, and industrial production data from the eurozone, UK, Italy, France, and of course China.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/268736-economic-calendar-china-data-u-s-inflation-and-eu-gdp

Top 5 Economics Graphs of the Week - 8 Jan 2011

This week we examine the US PMI results, US nonfarm payrolls, US equity and bond mutual fund flows trends, EU inflation and growth stats, and a review of monetary policy developments over the past week.

1. US PMI
The US had two good results, the manufacturing PMI increased to 57 from 56.6 (driven by strong new orders, production, and prices), and the non-manufacturing shot up to 57.1 from 55 (driven by new orders, business activity, and prices). The new orders part of the results was a cracker, with both sub-indices above 60), showing there may be a bit of momentum to come. Another interesting aspect of the releases was the increase in the price indexes: inflation? And the other notable was a small decline in both of the indexes' employment sub-indexes, which lines up with the good but not great NFP figure below.

2. US Nonfarm Payrolls
As noted, the figure came in a little lower than expected, and not really high enough to pull down the real unemployment rate. The figure was 103k jobs added, + upward revisions in Nov/Oct of about 70k. The unemployment rate went down to 9.4%, but not a good thing because it was participation rate driven (i.e. people who are becoming discouraged and pulling out of the labor force). So a good but not great result, this year should bring more job growth than last year as the recovery picks up (or as conditions normalize).

3. US Mutual Fund Flows
The story of 2010 mutual fund flows was a steady stream of net inflows into bond funds, with pretty lackluster flows for equity funds. But the worm may be turning, November saw the worst month in the year for bond fund flows, and a slight positive for equity funds. What's more, the weekly data through December (Dec monthly data not out yet) showed about -13 billion for bonds and about positive 5 billion for equity fund flows. So does this herald a trend of re-risking? Will we start to see the money go round reverse? ... Will equity flows beat bond flows this year? and of course what will this mean for the stock market?

4. EU Growth and Inflation
The EU finalized its GDP numbers for Q3, and released the first estimate of inflation for December, with both results being steady. It's likely both the GDP growth rate and inflation rate will muddle along at a subdued pace. But of course, the key risk for the EU is the "PIIGS", the Swiss National Bank has said it wont take Sovereign debt from Portugal or Ireland as collateral anymore, and well basically none of the problems have gone or even eased yet. So this remains a key risk for 2011. Oh and the ECB meets next week.

5. Monetary Policy Review
In monetary policy, Indonesia and Romania held, Peru raised rate 25bps, Bosnia reduced its RRR, and Chile announced currency intervention moves. But the real interesting development in monetary policy is the commodity story for 2011 - food prices remain high due to supply constraints (as well as some weather impacts), and energy is staging a cyclical rebound, pair that with fast growth in emerging markets and you have a real challenge for monetary policy setters in 2011. So, watch this space!

Summary

So we saw some pretty good PMI results in the US for December, which show that there is a bit of momentum in the US economy. The payrolls figure was good but not great; which may well be the theme for 2011. US mutual fund flows data pointed to a possible reversal of dominance from bond to equity funds for 2011. Over in the EU, conditions are on track but subdued, but of course there are still some relatively concerning risks bubbling away there. And on the monetary policy front, commodities and fast growing emerging markets are set to make this an "interesting" year for monetary policy makers.

Sources
1. US Institute for Supply Management www.ism.ws & Yahoo Finance finance.yahoo.com
2. US Bureau of Labor Statistics www.bls.gov
3. US Investment Company Institute www.ici.org
4. Trading Economics www.tradingeconomics.com
5. CentralBankNews.info www.centralbanknews.info

Article Source: http://www.econgrapher.com/top5graphs8jan11.html

Economic Calendar - 2 January 2011

Here's the Economic Calendar for the week commencing the 2nd of January 2011. Welcome to 2011, may it be a year of health, success and prosperity for you! And what better way to start the first week of 2011 than a look at some of the upcoming economic events! This week there's December PMI figures out from the US, and most EU economies, there's also initial estimates on EU CPI - as well as the final estimate of Q3 GDP. And of course one of the main events will be the US nonfarm payrolls report on Friday (with similar data due from Canada).

(More commentary follows the table)

Date	GMT	Country/ Currency	Event	Forecast	Previous
MON	08:45	EUR	Italian PMI Manufacturing (DEC)	52.20	52.00
MON	08:50	EUR	French PMI Manufacturing (DEC F)	56.30	56.30
MON	08:55	EUR	German PMI Manufacturing (DEC F)	60.90	60.90
MON	09:00	EUR	Euro-Zone PMI Manufacturing (DEC F)	56.80	56.80
MON	15:00	USD	ISM Manufacturing (DEC)	57.00	56.60
MON	15:00	USD	ISM Prices Paid (DEC)	71.30	69.50
TUE	09:30	GBP	Purchasing Manager Index Manufacturing (DEC)	57.40	58.00
TUE	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone CPI Estimate (YoY) (DEC)	2.00%	1.90%
TUE	15:00	USD	Factory Orders (NOV)	-0.20%	-0.90%
TUE	19:00	USD	Fed Releases Minutes - Dec 14 FOMC Meeting
TUE	22:00	USD	ABC Consumer Confidence (JAN 2)
WED	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Industrial New Orders (YoY) (OCT)	18.80%	13.40%
WED	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Industrial New Orders (MoM) (OCT)	1.50%	-3.80%
WED	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Producer Price Index (MoM) (NOV)	0.30%	0.40%
WED	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Producer Price Index (YoY) (NOV)	4.40%	4.40%
WED	13:30	USD	ADP Employment Change (DEC)	100K	93K
WED	15:00	USD	ISM Non-Manufacturing Composite (DEC)	55.60	55.00
THU	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Retail Sales (YoY) (NOV)	2.10%	1.40%
THU	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Economic Confidence (DEC)	105.50	105.30
THU	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Consumer Confidence (DEC)	-9.00	-9.40
THU	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Industrial Confidence (DEC)	1.90	0.90
THU	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Services Confidence (DEC)	10.10	10.20
THU	15:00	CAD	Ivey Purchasing Managers Index (DEC)	54.00	57.50
FRI	07:00	EUR	German Exports s.a. (MoM) (NOV)	0.90%	-1.30%
FRI	07:00	EUR	German Imports s.a. (MoM) (NOV)	2.00%	0.10%
FRI	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Gross Domestic Product (QoQ) (3Q F)	0.40%	0.40%
FRI	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Gross Domestic Product (YoY) (3Q F)	1.90%	1.90%
FRI	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Unemployment Rate (NOV)	10.10%	10.10%
FRI	11:00	EUR	German Industrial Production (YoY) (NOV)	10.90%	11.70%
FRI	11:00	EUR	German Industrial Production s.a. (MoM) (NOV)	-0.20%	2.90%
FRI	12:00	CAD	Full Time Employment Change (DEC)		-11.50
FRI	12:00	CAD	Participation Rate (DEC)	67.00	66.90
FRI	12:00	CAD	Net Change in Employment (DEC)	20.0K	15.2K
FRI	12:00	CAD	Part Time Employment Change (DEC)		26.70
FRI	12:00	CAD	Unemployment Rate (DEC)	7.70%	7.60%
FRI	13:30	CAD	Average Hourly Earning (MoM) (DEC)	0.20%	0.00%
FRI	13:30	CAD	Average Weekly Hours All Employees (DEC)	34.30	34.30
FRI	13:30	USD	Change in Non-farm Payrolls (DEC)	140K	39K
FRI	13:30	USD	Unemployment Rate (DEC)	9.70%	9.80%
FRI	20:00	USD	Consumer Credit (NOV)	$0.3B	$3.4B

As noted a few EU economies are set to release their PMI figures this week, and of course the much watched US ISM PMI stats are also out. The US is expected to show a slight improvement in the manufacturing index, ditto the services or non-manufacturing index. Meanwhile, China released its official PMI results in the last couple of days, showing a bit of a drop - but that's to be expected in some sense given the measures taken toward controlling inflation, as well as energy related targets; of course this will be the wild card for 2011... for the US though, 2011 could well be a much better year than 2010.

Back onto the EU, the statistics agency, Eurostat, will release the final reading of GDP data for Q3 this week, with little change expected - but with a few more details. Amongst the other stats set to be released by the EU are unemployment rate (expected to remain about 10%), a range of confidence indexes (which are broadly expected to improve slightly), and the December initial CPI estimate (expected to bump up slightly to a still subdued 2%).

Over to the US, as noted the key release will be the nonfarm payrolls data on Friday, consensus says a better month for December, so let's watch that one closely. The other interesting bits out of the US include Consumer Credit data for Nov (expect pretty flat results), the PMI indices as noted, and in monetary policy - the Fed releases the meeting minutes from the Dec 14 FOMC meeting... which may make for interesting reading, worth a skim at least.

So as always, have a great week, watch out for surprises, and 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/2jan11-calendar.html

Economic Calendar - 7 November 2010

Here's the Economic Calendar for the week commencing the 7th of November 2010. This week is a China week, there's the monthly trade data for October, and the usual suite of CPI, retail sales, industrial production, fixed asset investment, and property prices. Other than that the big ones will be EU Q3 GDP, trade balances and industrial production data from a few countries, and the G-20 Summit in Seoul.

(More commentary follows the table)

Day	GMT	Country/ Currency	Event	Forecast	Previous
MON	07:00	EUR	German Exports s.a. (MoM) (SEP)	1.5%	-0.4%
MON	07:00	EUR	German Imports s.a. (MoM) (SEP)	1.0%	0.9%
MON	07:00	EUR	German Current Account (euros) (SEP)	9.0B	4.6B
MON	07:00	EUR	German Trade Balance (euros) (SEP)	12.0B	9.0B
MON	11:00	NZD	QV House Prices (YoY) (OCT)		2.0%
MON	11:00	EUR	German Industrial Production (YoY) (SEP)	9.5%	10.7%
MON	23:50	JPY	Current Account Total (Yen) (SEP)	¥1684.3B	¥1114.2B
TUE	07:00	EUR	German Consumer Price Index (YoY) (OCT)	1.3%	1.3%
TUE	09:30	GBP	Total Trade Balance (Pounds) (SEP)	-£4500	-£4643
TUE	09:30	GBP	Industrial Production (YoY) (SEP)	3.6%	4.2%
TUE	12:30	USD	NFIB Small Business Optimism (OCT)		89
TUE	15:00	USD	Wholesale Inventories (SEP)	0.6%	0.8%
TUE	20:00	NZD	RBNZ Financial Stability Report
TUE	20:00	AUD	RBA Financial Stability Report
TUE	22:00	USD	ABC Consumer Confidence (NOV 7)
TUE		CNY	Trade Balance (USD) (OCT)	25.50B	$16.88B
TUE		CNY	Exports (YoY) (OCT)	23.0%	25.1%
TUE		CNY	Imports (YoY) (OCT)	28.1%	24.1%
WED	05:00	JPY	Consumer Confidence (OCT)	40.8	41.4
WED	07:45	EUR	French Industrial Production (YoY) (SEP)	4.7%	3.2%
WED	09:00	EUR	Italian Industrial Production (YoY) (SEP)	7.0%	9.5%
WED	10:30	GBP	Bank of England Quarterly Inflation Report
WED	13:30	CAD	International Merchandise Trade (SEP)	-1.5B	-1.3B
WED	13:30	USD	Trade Balance (SEP)	-$45.0B	-$46.3B
WED	13:30	USD	Import Price Index (YoY) (OCT)	3.6%	3.5%
WED	19:00	USD	Monthly Budget Statement (OCT)	-$152.0B	-$176.4B
WED	23:50	JPY	Machine Orders (YoY) (SEP)	4.9%	24.1%
WED		USD	G20 Summit Held in Seoul, South Korea
WED	00:30	AUD	Unemployment Rate (OCT)	5.0%	5.1%
WED	00:30	AUD	Employment Change (OCT)	20.0K	49.5K
WED	02:00	CNY	Consumer Price Index (YoY) (OCT)	4.0%	3.6%
WED	02:00	CNY	Retail Sales (YoY) (OCT)	18.8%	18.8%
WED	02:00	CNY	Industrial Production (YoY) (OCT)	13.5%	13.3%
WED	02:00	CNY	Fixed Assets Inv Urban YTD YoY (OCT)	24.4%	24.5%
WED	02:00	CNY	Producer Price Index (YoY) (OCT)	4.5%	4.3%
THU	21:00	NZD	REINZ Housing Price Index (MoM) (OCT)		-0.3%
THU		CNY	China Property Prices (OCT)		9.1
THU		USD	G20 Summit Held in Seoul, South Korea
THU	00:01	GBP	Nationwide Consumer Confidence (OCT)	54	53
FRI	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Industrial Production (YoY) (SEP)		7.9%
FRI	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Gross Domestic Product (QoQ)		1.0%
FRI	10:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Gross Domestic Product (YoY)		1.9%
FRI	14:55	USD	U. of Michigan Confidence (NOV P)

As noted China is the star of the week, with its monthly data dump. First up will be the export/import data for Oct; with imports projected to grow faster on an annual basis but for continued expansion in the trade surplus. Then later in the week there's the big release from the National Bureau of Statistics; the one to watch will be inflation, with consensus seeing a rise to 4% (which shouldn't surprise any of my regular readers). Industrial production will also be a key stat - with the PMI figures out last week pointing to a continued rebound. Then the following day has China Property Prices, which will be interesting to check in on.

Of course the other interesting bit out this week will be the GDP figures from the Euro Zone for the September quarter. Of course the report also shows the individual growth rates of the member nations, so this will be a pretty good check up for the EU. Another check point for the EU this week will be the industrial production figures (France, Italy, UK, Germany), and trade stats from Germany.

Speaking of trade and international flows, aside from Germany and China, Japan will release current account data, the UK will announce its trade deficit figures, and the US will also release the details of its September trade balance. Elsewhere, in the monetary policy realm, the Reserve Banks of New Zealand and Australia will release their financial stability reports; which will add insight into the financial systems of Australasia.

So as always, have a great week, watch out for surprises, and 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/7nov-calendar.html

Econ Grapher - Economic Calendar - 30 August 2010

Here's the Economic Calendar for the week commencing the 30th of August 2010. This week there's Q2 GDP results from Canada, Australia, Switzerland, and the EU. And of course given that this week brings the start of September we've got PMI figures out of China, the US, and a range of other countries. The other notables will be S&P/Case-Shiller house prices, US consumer confidence, Canada and Aussie current accounts, an ECB rate non-decision and of course US nonfarm payrolls.

(More commentary follows the table)

Day	Time (GMT)	Code	Event/Release	Forecast	Previous
MON		NZD	Imports (New Zealand dollars) (JUL)	3.70B	3.51B
MON		NZD	Exports (New Zealand dollars) (JUL)	3.65B	3.78B
MON		AUD	Company Operating Profit (QoQ) (2Q)	5.8%	3.9%
MON		NZD	NBNZ Business Confidence (AUG)		27.9
MON	09:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Economic Confidence (AUG)	101.6	101.3
MON	12:30	CAD	Current Account (BoP) (Canadian dollar) (2Q)	-$10.0B	-$7.8B
MON	12:30	USD	Personal Income (JUL)	0.3%	0.0%
MON	12:30	USD	Personal Spending (JUL)	0.3%	0.0%
MON	12:30	USD	Personal Consumption Expenditure Core (YoY)	1.4%	1.4%
MON	23:50	JPY	Industrial Production (MoM) (JUL P)	-0.2%	-1.1%
MON	23:50	JPY	Industrial Production (YoY) (JUL P)	14.3%	17.3%
MON	23:50	JPY	Retail Trade s.a. (MoM) (JUL)	0.5%	0.4%
MON	23:50	JPY	Retail Trade (YoY) (JUL)	3.5%	3.2%
MON	01:30	AUD	Retail Sales s.a. (MoM) (JUL)	0.4%	0.2%
MON	01:30	AUD	Current Account Balance (Australian Dollar) (2Q)	-6500M	-16551M
TUE	07:55	EUR	German Unemployment Change (AUG)	-20K	-20K
TUE	07:55	EUR	German Unemployment Rate s.a. (AUG)	7.6%	7.6%
TUE	09:00	EUR	Euro-Zone CPI Estimate (YoY) (AUG)	1.6%	1.7%
TUE	09:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Unemployment Rate (JUL)	10.0%	10.0%
TUE	12:30	CAD	Quarterly GDP Annualized (2Q)	2.5%	6.1%
TUE	13:00	USD	S&P/Case-Shiller Composite-20 s.a. (MoM) (JUN)	0.35%	0.47%
TUE	13:00	USD	S&P/Case-Shiller Composite-20 (YoY) (JUN)	3.50%	4.61%
TUE	14:00	USD	Consumer Confidence (AUG)	51.0	50.4
TUE	18:00	USD	FOMC Meeting Minutes (AUG 31)
TUE	01:00	CNY	Purchasing Managers Index Manufacturing (AUG)	51.5	51.2
TUE	01:00	CNY	HSBC Manufacturing PMI		49.4
TUE	01:30	AUD	Gross Domestic Product (QoQ) (2Q)	0.9%	0.5%
TUE	01:30	AUD	Gross Domestic Product (YoY) (2Q)	2.8%	2.7%
TUE	03:00	NZD	ANZ Commodity Price (AUG)		-0.8%
WED	07:55	EUR	German PMI Manufacturing (AUG F)	58.2	58.2
WED	08:00	EUR	Euro-Zone PMI Manufacturing (AUG F)
WED	14:00	USD	ISM Manufacturing (AUG)	53.0	55.5
WED	14:00	USD	ISM Prices Paid (AUG)	56.0	57.5
WED	01:30	AUD	Trade Balance (Australian dollar) (JUL)	3100M	3539M
THU	05:45	CHF	Gross Domestic Product (QoQ) (2Q)	0.8%	0.4%
THU	05:45	CHF	Gross Domestic Product (YoY) (2Q)	2.6%	2.2%
THU	09:00	EUR	Euro-Zone GDP s.a. (QoQ) (2Q P)	1.0%	1.0%
THU	09:00	EUR	Euro-Zone GDP s.a. (YoY) (2Q P)	1.7%	1.7%
THU	09:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Producer Price Index (YoY) (JUL)	3.9%	3.0%
THU	11:45	EUR	ECB Interest Rate Decision (SEP 2)	1.00%	1.00%
THU	14:00	USD	Pending Home Sales (MoM) (JUL)	-1.5%	-2.6%
THU	14:00	USD	Factory Orders (JUL)	0.5%	-1.2%
THU		EUR	German Retail Sales (MoM) (JUL)	0.5%	-0.9%
FRI	07:15	CHF	Consumer Price Index (YoY) (AUG)	0.4%	0.4%
FRI	08:00	EUR	Euro-Zone PMI Services (AUG F)	55.6	55.6
FRI	08:00	EUR	Euro-Zone PMI Composite (AUG F)	56.1	56.1
FRI	09:00	EUR	Euro-Zone Retail Sales (MoM) (JUL)	0.2%	0.0%
FRI	12:30	USD	Change in Non-Farm Payrolls (AUG)	-105K	-131K
FRI	12:30	USD	Unemployment Rate (AUG)	9.6%	9.5%
FRI	12:30	USD	Change in Private Payrolls (AUG)	46K	71K
FRI	14:00	USD	ISM Non-Manufacturing Composite (AUG)	53.5	54.3

This week we've got more Q2 GDP results out; first up will be Canada, which is expected to show an annualised quarterly growth rate of 2.5% vs 6.1% the previous quarter. Then there's Australia, expected to shrug-off the election issues and clock up 0.9% q/q for Q2. Then there's the EU data, with the Swiss expected to show 0.8% q/q and the wider EU with 1.0%. More or less all lining up with the post-recession recovery bounce, but the key question will be who's still growing come Q3 and Q4... because the easy part of the recovery is over, time for the real hard work to begin!

Now there are a few countries releasing PMI data this week, but no doubt all eyes will be on the two juggernauts; China and the US. Both are going to play critical roles in the course of the global economy over the coming period. China is expected to show a slight rebound - and what ever the figure is it will send strong signals (a weaker figure will confirm the slowdown, a stronger figure will suggest continued growth, and something in between will leave uncertainty in its wake). The US; manufacturing is the strong point, so let's watch this one closely - will the last bastion of the US economic recovery fall?

Another area of interest this week will be the international trade and capital flows; Canada will report its Q2 current account balance, and is expected to show a larger deficit... then Aus will also release its Q2 figure but a smaller deficit is expected. New Zealand will release its trade figures early Monday; with imports expected to jump above exports for the first time in about a year, and Aus will release its July trade balance later in the week.

Elsewhere there's the increasingly important S&P Case Shiller home price index, and US consumer confidence numbers - both will give important insights into the course of the downward spiral of the US economy; as will the nonfarm payroll figures on Friday. In Japan there's industrial production figures and retail trade - both of importance for the Japanese economy which is sitting at the watershed. And of course last but not least there's the ECB monetary policy announcement - not a huge probability of anything significant here, but watch for their analysis anyway... the US Fed will be putting out its recent meeting minutes too.

So as always, have a great week, watch out for surprises, and 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/30aug-calendar.html