What to Expect from the Week Ahead

UK and German economic data will take centre stage following Friday's strong US jobs report

Holly Cook 5 April, 2010 | 4:27PM
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Good Friday’s good jobs report should provide a psychological lift to consumer moods when markets return to trading on Tuesday following the long Easter weekend. A total of 162,000 new jobs were added in the US in March and, encouragingly, the report revealed that not only is discretionary consumer spending coming back but that March was the first month in a long time that America’s goods-producing sector added jobs too. Watch Morningstar analysts discuss the Friday jobs report in this video.

This coming week, we’ll be halfway through before things really heat up as investors gradually return from their Easter weekend. Interest rate decisions from the UK, Europe and Japan will attract attention in the latter half of the week, though no changes are expected, while a range of data from Germany will provide insight into the eurozone’s first quarter.

Monday
UK and most European markets closed.

Tuesday
The first trading day of the week is likely to be relatively quiet, with the main data point for UK investors provided by the Purchasing Managers’ Index for the construction industry. A slight fall is forecast for the month of March, down to 58.0.

Wednesday
The Japanese government will kickstart the interest rate meetings on Wednesday morning but Germany’s PMI reading for the services sector will likely attract more attention, where a strong increase from February’s 51.9 to a little under 55.0 is expected this time round. The latest reading of the eurozone’s fourth-quarter economic output will also be unveiled mid-week, though it is widely expected to remain at the 0.1% sequential growth previously forecast.

The income investors, UK blue chips that will trade exclusive of dividend rights on Wednesday include British Land, Pearson and Prudential.

Thursday
On Thursday, a number of economic reports will focus investor attention. Both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank will make announcements but neither is expected to change their interest rates, nor expand their quantitative easing programmes at this time.

Eurozone retail sales for February are seen flat month-on-month, which would represent a slight improvement on January’s performance, while both the UK and Germany will report industrial production figures for February, seen up around 0.5% and 0.6%, respectively.

Friday
The final day of the truncated trading week will play host to Germany’s trade balance, which is predicted to come in at a marginally-higher EUR 11.0 billion in February. Back in the UK, producer price index output in March is forecast to show additional improvement, up 0.4% sequentially following February’s 0.3% rise.

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Holly Cook

Holly Cook  is Manager, Morningstar EMEA Websites

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