We are facing an interesting data calendar with several important releases amid markets digesting Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's comments yesterday on the US monetary policy outlook .
In the US , retail sales figures for January are released. Private consumption continues to be the main growth driver and given the very high level of consumer confidence we expect retail sales rose 0.3% m/m in January, which would indicate that private consumption got off to a great start in 2017. Also today, we get CPI figures for January which we expect rose 0.3% m/m pushed up not only by core CPI but also by higher energy and food prices, implying an increase in the inflation rate to 2.4% y/y in January from 2.1% y/y in December.CPI core inflation is expected to fall to 2.1% y/y from 2.2% y/y, which means the Fed can afford to stay patient before hiking again. Also, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will testify before the House of Financial Services Committee (after she testified before the Senate Banking Committee yesterday, see 'Selected Market news' below).
In the UK the labour market report for December is due. We expect the unemployment rate (3M avg.) rose to 4.9% from 4.8%, as the very low print in September drops out of the three-month average.We estimate the annual growth in average weekly earnings ex bonuses (3M average) fell to 2.6% y/y in December from 2.7% y/y in November.
In the Scandies , the big event of the day is the Riksbank monetary policy meeting in Sweden. For more info see 'Scandi Markets' on page 2.
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