Weekly Market Outlook (05-09 August)

UPCOMING
EVENTS:

• Monday: China Caixin Services PMI, Eurozone PPI, US ISM
  Services PMI, Fed’s SLOOS.
• Tuesday: Japan Average Cash Earnings, RBA Policy Decision,
  Swiss Unemployment Rate and Retail Sales, Eurozone Retail Sales, Canada
  Services PMI.
• Wednesday: New Zealand Labour Market report, BoC Minutes.
• Thursday: BoJ Summary of Opinions, US Jobless Claims.
• Friday: China CPI, Canada Labour Market report.

Monday

The US ISM
Services PMI is expected at 51.0 vs. 48.8 prior. This survey hasn’t been giving
any clear signal lately as it’s just been ranging since 2022. The latest S&P Global US Services
PMI rose to the
highest level in 28 months. The good news in the report was that “the rate of
increase of average prices charged for goods and services has slowed further, dropping
to a level consistent with the Fed’s 2% target”.

The bad news was
that “both manufacturers and service providers reported heightened
uncertainty around the election, which is dampening investment and hiring. In
terms of inflation, the July survey saw input costs rise at an increased rate,
linked to rising raw material, shipping and labour costs. These higher costs
could feed through to higher selling prices if sustained or cause a squeeze
on margins.”

Tuesday

The Japanese
Average Cash Earnings Y/Y is expected at 2.3% vs. 1.9% prior. As a reminder,
the BoJ hiked interest rates by 15 bps at the last meeting and Governor Ueda
said that more rate hikes could follow if the data supports such a move.
The economic indicators they are focusing on are: wages, inflation, service
prices and the GDP gap.

The RBA is
expected to keep the Cash Rate unchanged at 4.35%. The RBA has been maintaining
a hawkish tone due to the stickiness in inflation and the market at times even priced
in high chances of a rate hike. The latest Australian Q2 CPI quelled those expectations as we saw misses across
the board and the market (of course) started to see chances of rate cuts, with now 32 bps of easing seen by year-end (the
increase on Friday was due to the soft US NFP report).

Wednesday

The New Zealand
Unemployment Rate is expected to jump to 4.7% vs. 4.3% prior with Job Growth
Q/Q seen at -0.3% vs. -0.2% prior. The Labour Cost Index Y/Y is expected at
3.5% vs. 3.8% prior, while the Q/Q measure is seen at 0.8% vs. 0.8% prior. The
labour market has been softening steadily in New Zealand and that remains
one of the main reasons why the market continues to expect rate cuts coming
much sooner than the RBNZ’s forecasts.

Thursday

The US Jobless
Claims continue to be one of the most important releases to follow every week
as it’s a timelier indicator on the state of the labour market. This
particular release will be crucial as it lands in a very worried market after
the Friday’s soft US jobs data.

Initial Claims
remain inside the 200K-260K range created since 2022, although they’ve been
climbing towards the upper bound lately. Continuing Claims, on the other hand,
have been on a sustained rise and we saw another cycle high last week.

This week Initial
Claims are expected at 250K vs. 249K prior, while there’s no consensus for
Continuing Claims at the time of writing although the prior release saw an
increase to 1877K vs. 1844K prior.

Friday

The Canadian
Labour Market report is expected to show 25K jobs added in July vs. -1.4K prior
and the Unemployment Rate to remain unchanged at 6.4%. As a reminder, the BoC
cut interest rates to 4.50% at the last meeting and signalled further rate cuts
ahead. The market is pricing 80 bps of easing by year-end.