Economic calendar: Retail sales to dominate the day

Summary:

• Retail sales readings from the UK and the US will dominate trading on Thursday

• DoE is expected to report an increase in inventories

• A lot of central banks’ speakers on the agenda

9:30 am GMT - UK retail sales: Data published from the UK economy have been mixed recently but it has not matter too much for the pound as the main focus is on the Brexit thread. In October a slight improvement of retail sales is forecast as the consensus points to a 0.2% rise MoM. The higher reading for the last month could be, in part, due to warm weather and it’s unlikely to tell us much more about the underlying trend there.

1:30 pm GMT - US retail sales: The Federal Reserve remains on track to continue hiking rates in the next year (plus one rate hikes in December) and short-term increased volatility in the financial market is unlikely to derail this plan, according to Fed’s Jerome Powell. While the data flowing from the US have been quite strong (except releases concerning the housing market), rate hikes are already priced in hence there is no too much space for the stronger dollar from the current levels. Today’s retail sales should produce decent values: headline sales are forecast to grew 0.5% MoM, core sales excluding auto and gasoline should increase 0.4% MoM. In addition to retail sales we will be also offered a reading of weekly jobless claims where the consensus points to 215k.

4:00 pm GM - inventory data by DoE: The API release showed a 3.2 million barrels rise compared to the consensus of a 8.8 million barrels pick-up. Therefore, expectations ahead of the governmental release could be tilted to the downside. The official consensus suggests a rise of 2.9 million barrels. At the same time, gasoline inventories ought to decrease 0.94 million barrels while distillate inventories are expected to decline 1.8 million barrels.

Central banks’ speakers scheduled for today:

• 8:15 am GMT - Riksbank’s Johnick

• 12:15 pm GMT - ECB’s Coeure

• 1:10 pm GMT - ECB’s Praet

• 2:35 pm GMT - ECB’s de Guindos

• 3:00 pm GMT - Fed’s Quarles

• 4:30 pm GMT - Fed’s Powell

• 6:00 pm GMT - Fed’s Bostic

• 8:00 pm GMT - Fed’s Kashakri

More: The central bank of Mexico is expected to hike the overnight rate to 8% from 7.75%, the decision will be released at 7:00 pm GMT.