Economic Calendar | April 17 – 21

Monday, April 17 

The macroeconomic calendar on Monday is absolutely empty, and if there are no unexpected news or events, then the beginning of the week will be quite calm and quiet.

Tuesday, April 18

Tuesday will start with a block of data from China: first-quarter GDP, industrial production and retail sales, and unemployment.

Next, you should pay attention to the statistics on the UK labor market. It is expected that the unemployment rate may rise from 3.7% to 3.8%, which will lead to a weakening of the pound. 

Then the Canadian dollar will be under pressure. The reason will be inflation, which should slow down from 5.2% to 4.1%. Such a reduction excludes the very possibility of a further increase in the refinancing rate of the Bank of Canada and creates prerequisites for its reduction. And this, in turn, will lead to a weakening of the Canadian dollar.

Wednesday, April 19

On Wednesday, data on inflation in the UK will be published, due to which the pound will continue to lose its position. It is expected that the growth rate of consumer prices should slow down from 10.4% to 10.2%. 

But inflation in Europe will leave investors indifferent, as the final data are published, which should confirm the preliminary estimate already taken into account by the market.

Thursday, April 20

The main event of the day will be the publication of data on applications for unemployment benefits in the United States, which should continue to grow. However, this growth is expected to be extremely insignificant and will not be able to somehow affect the mood of market participants. So the market will most likely consolidate in the area of the values reached earlier.

Friday, April 21

The end of the week will be extremely busy. Friday will begin with data on inflation in Japan, where it should fall from 3.3% to 3.2%. It is worth noting that even when inflation in the country was growing, the Bank of Japan did not decide to raise the refinancing rate. And in the conditions of slowing inflation, this possibility is excluded in principle. And further implementation of the policy of negative interest rates will have a rather negative impact on the yen. 

But the pound will be able to significantly strengthen its position. The growth driver will be retail sales data, the decline of which by -3.5% should be replaced by an increase of 3.2%. Such a sharp change in the trend in the positive direction will certainly strengthen the pound.

Similar data for Canada, on the contrary, will put pressure on the Canadian dollar, since the growth rate of retail sales should slow down from 5.0% to 4.6%. 

Considerable interest at the end of the week will be aroused by preliminary estimates of business activity indices, which can make their own adjustments to the overall dynamics of the market. Moreover, indices are expected to grow everywhere except the United States. Whereas in the USA they should decrease somewhat. As a result, the week is likely to end with a general weakening of the dollar, especially against the pound and the single European currency.