Economic diary for week ending 25th July
Inflation came in ahead of expectation for both the UK and US showing the effects of high oil and food prices are really hitting the economies hard. US retail sales came in below expectation which would suggest that the previous high figures were solely related to the tax refunds. In the UK British Retail Consortium’s figure on retail sales suggested that we too saw a blip last month, with indications that this weeks official figure will come in lower.
UK unemployment managed to stay at 5.2%, but the number of claimants actually grew by 15,000.
In the US we saw Building Permits and Housing starts both increase, but we do not see this as a signal to the end of their housing woes. It may be a case of who will lend potential buyers the money and at what price the houses will be sold that will be more important.
Looking to the week ahead there are not too many key reports being released. The focus in the UK will be when King addresses the Parliamentary Committee to discuss banking reforms. Plus, the Bank of England minutes will give us more idea as to how the committee were thinking and what information they are seeing which was not widely broadcast. We already know that up until now only one member has voted against the committee in leaving rates unchanged. David Blanchflower has been in the news today saying that he believes that rates should be ut urgently to stop the recession taking full grip.
Monday 21st July
- 00:01 UK Rightmove House Price Index
- 15:00 US Leading Indicators
Tuesday 22nd July
- 09:45 UK Mervyn King (BoE Governor) addresses Parliament on bank reforms
- 15:00 US House Price Index
- 15:00 US Richmond Manufacturing Index
Wednesday 23rd July
- 09:30 UK BoE Interest meeting minutes
- 09:30 UK British Banking Association Mortgage approvals
- 11:00 UK CBI Industrial Trends Orders
- 15:35 US Crude Oil Inventories
- 19:00 US Beige Book
Thursday 24th July
- 09:30 UK Retail sales
- 13:30 US Jobless report
- 15:00 US Existing Home Sales
Friday 25th July
- 09:30 UK GDP Prelim report Q2
- 09:30 UK Index of services
- 13:30 US Durable goods orders
- 15:00 US New Home Sales
