Look ahead: US jobs report; Australia trade balance; Halifax; eurozone retail sales
Traders brace for the latest NFP print after some strong economic reports earlier in the week, which raised doubts about the three rate cuts widely priced in for 2024. Australia publishes trade numbers.
It is all about retail sales in the eurozone. Plus, look out for UK housebuilders as we get the latest Halifax house price index print.
(Partial Video Transcript)
Australian trade balance numbers
Angeline Ong: Hello, I'm Angeline Ong and welcome to your “Look ahead” to Friday, the 5th of April. Now the key number to look out for will be, of course, those non-farm payrolls. But ahead of that, we have trade balance numbers out of Australia. Expectations for February is for the trade surplus to widen to $11 billion AUD.
UK Halifax House Price Index
Now in the UK it's all about housing and property, with the Halifax House Price Index out. We also have the S&P global construction PMI. Some glimmers of hope coming out from the UK property market, but all in all, all things remaining equal, many housebuilders still saying that it looks like a tough 2024.
Eurozone retail sales
In terms of the eurozone, it's all about retail sales expectations. For February it will be -0.4% month-on-month.
US NFP number
The elephant in the room, of course, is that non-farm payrolls number. The consensus for March is that there will be 200,000 new jobs created. So watch out for the unemployment rate as well, because that's expected to be at 3.9%. Now, if we do get those numbers, it will be above the pre-pandemic average monthly job growth and it would also mark the 39th month in a row that the economy has added jobs.
Now, don't forget the US economy has been confounding many investors so far that last year, just last year they were saying that perhaps there could still be a recession, but actually it's managed to sidestep it and in style as well. We still get a strong data sort of week after week from the US economy, which seems to show no signs of slowing down. But the concern there, of course, is that inflation pressures might, of course come back. And if we get a weaker number for that, NFP reading it could bolster expectations for rate cuts later this year, rather that June day.
(Watch the video for the full "Look ahead" episode)
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