Monday 6 April
– German factory orders data
Tuesday 7 April
– Halifax UK house price index
– US JOLTS Job openings for February
Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management investment manager Sam Buckingham said overall the index has been falling for the past six months as the world’s largest economy has been hovering around full employment, with a record low unemployment rate and a rising participation rate.
“Going forwards, job openings will clearly plummet further but this will be for a very different reason, as businesses focus their attention on cutting costs to try and weather the coronavirus-driven storm.”
– Interest rate decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia.
– German industrial production data
Wednesday 8 April
– Asos interim results
AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said: “Asos has suffered a torrid run of profit warnings in December 2018 and then March and July 2019 and the fast fashion retailer will be looking to get back on track with these interim results – although the viral outbreak will bring additional complications during this transitional time, in terms of whether it affects customer demand, the ability to keep warehouse staff happy and manage supply chains, given the reduced availability of aeroplanes and container ships for shipping freight.”
– US small business sentiment and new job openings
Mould noted the last reading for the NFIB Smaller Business Economics Trends survey was 104.5 which maintained a run of scores above 100 that stretched back to December 2016, just after the election of Donald Trump as president.
“It seems logical to expect a hit to smaller company sentiment thanks to the rapid spread of Covid-19 in America. Note how the NFIB and the American small-cap Russell 2000 index have tended to move in lockstep over time – and the Russell has already taken a big leg down so at least it is braced for bad news.”
– Tesco full-year results
Tesco’s shares are pretty much unchanged over the past 12 months, said Mould, which is pretty good in the context of a 25% drop in the FTSE 100. He said three factors are giving the stock some support: the acquisition of wholesaler Booker in 2017; the sale of its Thai and Malaysian operations for around £8bn; and panic buying of pasta, flour and loo roll as customers stock up, hunker down and wait out the Covid-19 outbreak.
– US MBA Mortgage Applications
Buckingham said: “For the week ended 27 March, this broad mortgage applications index rose 15.3%, indicating that the Federal Reserve’s emergency interest rate cuts are being taken advantage of by household owners. The refinancing measure jumped over 25%. Having said that, the purchase index dropped 10.8% for a third straight week to the lowest level since November 2016.”
– Quilter annual report
– Japanese wage growth data
– UK construction, manufacturing and industrial output data
– US oil inventories data
Thursday 9 April
– US initial jobless claims
The last two weeks’ figures have blown records out of the water, with last week’s reading showing that more than 6.5 million people submitted claims, following the previous week’s 3.3 million.
“To put this into context, the first couple of months the average weekly reading was 210,000,” said Buckingham. “The peak weekly reading during the 2008-09 global financial crisis was 670,000, so these truly are unprecedented times.”
– UK GDP data
Friday 10 April
– Chinese inflation data
– US inflation data
