Today, Fed Chair Janet Yellen would be speaking on the economic outlook and the monetary policy. For the week ahead, the monthly budget statement would be released on Wednesday. The budget deficit probably narrowed to US$150B in March, from US$192B a month ago. Upstream price index, PPI, probably accelerated to +2.4% y/y in March, from +2.2% a month ago. Core PPI might have improved to +1.8% from +1.5% in February. The preliminary estimate of University of Michigan index is expected to have slipped -0.3 point to 96.6 in April. The weekly initial jobless claims probably increased to 245K in the week ended April 8, from 234K a week ago. The closely-watched inflation report would be released on Friday. Headline CPI probably eased to +2.6% y/y in March, from +2.7% in February. Core CPI might have improved o +2.3% from +2.2% in February. Retails sales might have slipped -0.1% in March, after gaining +0.1% a month ago.
In Europe, Tuesday comes February’s IP data and April’s ZEW survey for the Eurozone. Meanwhile, the final March inflation reports in German, France, Italy and Spain would be released later in the week. UK’s March inflation report would be due on Tuesday. We would also get more insight on the country’s employment conditions would a number of job data due Wednesday. Jobless claims probably dropped 10.2K in March, after falling -11.3K a month ago. The ILO unemployment rate for the 3 months through February probably stayed unchanged at 4.7%.
Some hard data would be released in China this week. Headline CPI, due Wednesday, might have accelerated to +1% in March, from +0.8% in the prior month. PPI, after soaring for many months, probably eased to +7.5% in March from +7.8% previously. Thursday comes the trade data which probably shows a surplus of US$12.5B in March, from a deficit of US$9.1B in the prior month. Following the Trump-Xi meeting last week, both parties agreed on a 100-day assessment on the trade issue before further discussion.
Commitments of Traders:
Speculators were bullish over the energy complex in the week ended April 4. Net LENGTH for crude oil futures rose +10 302 contracts from a week ago to 408 382. Net LENGTH of heating oil gained +757 contracts to 26 103 while net LENGTH for gasoline increased +5 939 contracts to 55 206. Net SHORT for natural gas dropped -4 487 contracts to 18 360 for the week.
With the exception of platinum, speculators were bullish over the precious metal complex last week. Net LENGTH for gold rose +17 616 contract to 155 436, while that for silver futures jumped +10 694 contracts to 101 382. For PGMs, net LENGTH for platinum dropped -916 contracts to 26 713 while that for palladium gained +535 contracts to 21 067.
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Inflation Data as Key of the Week