The Week Ahead – Week Commencing 26 August 2024

Global financial markets ended the week on a high note, as central bank updates from Jackson Hole propelled major US indices upward. The Dow, the S&P, and the Nasdaq all gained over 1% after Jerome Powell confirmed that the Federal Reserve’s easing cycle would begin next month.

This week’s macroeconomic data calendar is slightly busier, with key updates from the US and Eurozone, particularly on inflation. As the Jackson Hole symposium wraps up on Sunday, traders might see some market gaps on Monday morning. However, the overall impact seems to have been positive for risk sentiment.

Here’s our usual day-by-day breakdown of the major risk events this week:

It’s a quiet start to the week on the event calendar with little on the schedule for the first two trading sessions of the day. The New York session is also thin on data releases, but we do hear from Fed member Christopher Waller early in the session which could push rate cut expectations one way or the other.

There is the potential for some volatility in Asian markets on Tuesday with China due to announce any changes in the Loan Prime Rates and the RBA’s Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes being released. The European session see’s the SNB’s Thomas Jordan speaking in early in the day, but the highlight of the day comes in the New York session with the latest Canadian CPI data due out. Later in the session we hear from the Fed’s Bostic and Barr.

There is very little scheduled to move markets on Wednesday across all three trading sessions until we hit what will be the main focus for most traders at the end of the US Day when the FOMC’s latest meeting minutes are released.

Thursday sees a raft of Flash Manufacturing and Service PMI data releases due across the day with numbers due out from Australia, France, Germany, the UK and the US – although not as impactful as CPI data these number are closely watched as another piece of the inflation puzzle. The US session also has the usual weekly unemployment claims numbers due out as well.

The early focus in Asia will be on New Zealand with the latest Retail Sales numbers due out, however it is then a long wait for investors until we get to the US session and the start of the Jackson Hole Symposium, where we are due to hear from the Fed’s Jerome Powell and the Bank of England’s Andrew Bailey. Prior to the big central bank updates we also have the latest Canadian Retail Sales numbers due out.

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