FXStreet (Guatemala) – Analysts at Nomura offered the key events for the week ahead, noting a possibly quiet number of sessions into the New Year.
Key Quotes:
“US: Advance Goods Trade Balance (Tuesday 13:30), Pending home sales MoM (Wednesday 15:00), Chicago PMI (Thursday 14:45).
2. UK: Nationwide House prices MoM (Wednesday 07:00).
3. JP: Industrial production MoM (Sunday 23:50).
In the U.S, given slower global growth and the stronger dollar, we expect the advanced goods trade balance for November to have a material impact on Q4 GDP tracking.
Consumer confidence surprised to the downside again in November as consumers reported concerns over the job market and despite improvements in expectations over future spending as auto and major appliance buying plans increased.
We expect a bounce back in consumer confidence for December given that the preliminary University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index for this month increased, gasoline prices continued to fall and labor market performance remained solid.
We estimate the index increased by 2.6pts to 93.0 in December and remain constructive on the US consumer sector, where we expect consumer activity to be one of the driving forces of growth in the near term. On the back of favorable fundamentals (demographics, improving labor market and income growth, and low mortgage rates), we should see a continued recovery in housing.
Given that pending home sales leads existing sales by a couple of months, this measure should give us an indication of the pace of existing sales in December. Industrial sector activity remained weak in Q4, as suggested by the Chicago PMI report. We expect a reading of 50.0 in Chicago PMI for December, on the back of declining new orders index to an eight-month low and the fact that recently released Manufacturing surveys for December remained negative.”
(Market News Provided by FXstreet)