Economic calendar: US retail sales report, speech from Powell

• European markets set to open lower

• Fed Chair Powell to speak in the evening

• US retail sales data for July to be released at 1:30 pm BST

Futures markets point to a lower opening of the European cash session today, following a poor performance of equities during the Asian session. NZD is sinking after New Zealand reported the first case of coronavirus since February and a 3-day nationwide lockdown was announced.

There are no key economic reports scheduled for release during the European morning hours. Release of the GDP data from the euro area will be a revision and therefore should not have a major impact on the market. However, things get more interesting in the afternoon with release of the US retail sales data for July (1:30 pm BST) and speech from Fed Chair Powell (6:30 pm BST)

10:00 am BST - Euro area, GDP report for Q2 2021 (second release). First release:2.0% QoQ

1:15 pm BST - Canada, housing starts for July. Expected: 275k. Previous: 282.1k

1:30 pm BST - US, retail sales for July.

• Headline. Expected: -0.2% MoM. Previous: 0.6% MoM

• Ex-autos. Expected: 0.2% MoM. Previous: 1.3% MoM

2:15 pm BST - US, industrial production for July. Expected: 0.3% MoM. Previous: 0.4% MoM

9:40 pm BST - API report on oil inventories. Expected: -1.2 mb. Previous: 0.82 mb

Central bankers' speeches

• 6:30 pm BST - Fed Chair Powell

• 8:45 pm BST - Fed Kashkari

US earnings reports

• Home Depot (HD.US) - before market open

• Walmart (WMT.US) - before market open