This week we get the full end of start of month and quarter drop of economic data around the world – from Australia, the US, Europe, Japan and China – that will tell us the global economy is in better shape than we thought a month ago.
In Australia there’s the start of month data on retail sales, building approvals, lending finance and trade – all for February.
Preliminary figures for retail sales showed a drop and the final data won’t change that, the trade account will show another big surplus; building approvals will be softer and lending finance will show another rise for loans to homebuyers and investors.
There’s latest job vacancies for the three months to February and an update on jobs and wages from the ABS.
JobKeeper ended on Sunday and the impact will probably emerge after Easter in the weekly updates from the ABS of jobs and wages (using Tax Office data).
Wednesday sees the end of March and the March quarter here and offshore while on Friday there’s a rare event – the release of US jobless figures for March on a holiday for only the 12th time ever since 1980.
The start of month surveys of manufacturing in the major world economies happens this week – starting with China on Wednesday with the government survey and the private version the next day.
There’s also the ECB’s latest analysis and eurozone inflation for release and Japan’s quarterly Tankan report on business sentiment from the Bank of Japan.
The big data release of the week is the US March employment report – due Good Friday – which should be highly instructive about the state of the jobs recovery.
Nonfarm employment is forecast to have increased by a massive 630,000 in March as the big freeze ended and lockdowns were eased in many states (And a 6% unemployment rate, down from 6.2%).
February gains surprised on the upside as employers added 379,000 jobs (market forecast was 210,000) despite temporary negative effects from the big freeze and teacher employment.
Job growth will be strong over the next few months, according to US economists with the impact of the massive Biden stimulus package to kick in this month.
Prior to Friday’s report, there’s the latest jobless claims on Thursday. Total initial claims fell below 1 million last week for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
There’s new data on construction spending, the March manufacturing activity survey index and vehicle sales figures for March.
Markets will be focused on President Joe Biden’s $US3 trillion infrastructure plan, which he is expected to unveil in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.
In Europe, besides the ECB’s update, there the early data on euro zone consumer price inflation for March. (Estimated to rise to 1.2% year on year in March from 0.9% in February).
Core inflation though is likely unchanged at a weak 1.2% annual following ongoing lockdowns that suppress consumption, particularly of services in France, Italy, Spain. Germany and Denmark.
Japan’s Tankan survey for the March quarter is forecast to seen an improvement in sentiment (for the third quarter in a row) for big, medium and small manufacturers, but a fall in the measures of sentiment among non- manufacturing countries.
China’s official manufacturing PMI is forecast to improve in March to 51, after weakening by 0.7 point to 50.6 in February. Improvement in demand at home and abroad is behind the expected gain.
The non-manufacturing index is also expected to have improved after slipping in February to its slowest expansion in a year at 51.4.
