The Week Ahead - 19 - 23 January 2026

United States – This week we will get the October and November PCE report. Our nowcasts based on CPI and PPI releases for those months have significantly more uncertainty than usual as many individual categories are missing, but we estimate core at 0.3% m/m in October and 0.2% in November. That puts the y/y at 2.9% as of November, up from 2.8% in September. Due to the shutdown, we expect weaker spending in October, and a little bit stronger spending in November due to a rebound of pent up demand. On the policy front, this weekend, the Fed's blackout period starts. Our base case, and market consensus is that there will be no rate cuts this upcoming meeting. We will also go into the week again with a possibility of a Supreme court ruling on Trump's emergency tariffs. We see it as slightly more likely than not that they will be annulled, which may very well imply that they have to be paid back. The court typically releases decisions on argument days, Tuesday and Wednesday next week. China – We expect real GDP growth (Monday) to have slowed further to 4.5% y/y in Q4-25 (down from 4.8% in Q3), in line with consensus, with quarterly growth still around 1% q/q s.a. This would bring annual GDP growth over 2025 at 5.0%, in line with Beijing’s target (and our forecast). Meanwhile, activity data over December are expected to show that the supply side (industrial production) remains stronger than the demand side (retail sales), while the reported slump in fixed investment will likely deepen. Consensus expectation including ours is for the 1-year loan prime rate to stay at 3.00% on Tuesday; going forward we expect more piecemeal monetary easing (mini rate cuts, cuts in bank reserve requirements ratios).