The Week Ahead: 30 March - 3 April 2026
These are the key macro events for the upcoming week.
Eurozone - Inflation is expected to have jumped in the flash March reading to well above the ECB’s 2% target, driven by pass-through of the surge in oil prices to petrol pump prices. Core inflation however is likely to have moderated, helped by base effects in services inflation. ECB speakers will also be closely watched for clues on the prospects of a near-term rate hike. Our base case sees a hike happening already at the 30 April meeting.
Netherlands - The fallout from the war in the Middle East will be visible in the March inflation print. Inflation (CPI) in the Netherlands is expected to have jumped significantly in March to 2.9% from 2.4% in February, primarily on the back of higher petrol prices. Petrol prices are expected to have contributed roughly half a percentage to inflation. Higher gas prices are expected to only slowly add to inflation over the coming months, given the fact that 56% of Dutch households have fixed energy contracts. We expect the rise in energy price to broaden into other categories over the coming months, resulting in higher inflation. For now we expect CPI inflation to average 2.9% in 2026.
China - After the divergence between the stronger PMI readings from RatingDog and the weaker official readings went sky-high in February, March PMIs are expected to show some turnaround. The official PMIs (with a focus on large state-firms) are expected to improve somewhat, partly reflecting a post Lunar New Year break pick-up in construction and Beijing’s support for investment. By contrast, the PMIs from RatingDog (with a stronger focus on exporting firms) are expected to come down again (although remaining stronger than the official ones), with the impact from the Iran-conflict starting to filter through.
US - Our nowcast points to a slight reversal of last month's negative NFP reading, coming in at around 75k. This would be enough to keep the unemployment rate at 4.4%, barring another big swing in the participation rate. As for retail sales earlier in the week, we're expecting a bit of a rebound from the January contraction, coming in at 0.6% m/m. This is partly driven by higher than usual tax returns.
