The week ahead: 2 – 6 September 2024
These are the Key Macro Events for the upcoming week.
United States – Next week's main data releases concern August labour market data. These figures are crucial for the Fed's rate decision on September 18th. On Wednesday we get Jolts job openings, which is likely to be near the 8.1 million level. On Friday the BLS releases the headline figures. We expect non-farm payrolls to have increased by a moderate 165k after July's downward surprise of a 114k gain. Given the relative stability of continuing jobless claims, the unemployment rate may increase a bit further but will likely stay at 4.3% after rounding. Tuesday and Thursday see the release of the ISM manufacturing and services indices for August. We expect manufacturing to rebound a bit but stay in contractionary territory, and the services index to show a moderate decline, whilst staying above the 50 mark.
Eurozone – Next week data on industrial production (Friday) for July of major eurozone countries and factory orders in Germany (Thursday) for July will be published. The releases are expected to reiterate the weak state in the eurozone manufacturing sector. Given the lack of (international) demand for industrial goods the German factory orders are watched closely for any preliminary signs of a demand pickup. We expect eurozone retail sales to rebound, helped by slowly recovering consumer confidence and continued strong real income gains.
China – August PMIs are due on Saturday (official PMIs), Monday (Caixin manufacturing) and Wednesday (Caixin services). General expectation is for a stabilisation of the PMIs compared to July. Particularly the official PMIs are currently at relatively weak levels, both for manufacturing (around 49.5) and services (around 50), partly reflecting headwinds from the property sector downturn.