Market movers today
A fairly quiet day on the data front with no major releases in Europe.
Housing starts and jobless claims are due in the US. Housing starts should see a big rebound following a steep weather-related decline in February. Consensus is for a rise of 15.9% m/m. Building permits may be more interesting, though, as they tend to be more stable. They have been trending gradually higher for a year but generally been weaker than expected given the very low mortgage yields.
Jobless claims in the US is one of the few indicators that continue to indicate underlying strength in the US economy. The 4-week moving average is running at a 40-year low. Consensus is for a broadly unchanged level at 280k but given the latest weakness in data there may be some upward risks to this.
There are also a lot of Fed speakers on tap today. Lockhart (voter, neutral), Mester (non-voter, hawk), Rosengren (none-voter, dove) and Fischer (voter, neutral) will all speak tonight. They may indicate rising uncertainty over the US outlook following the weak US retail sales report Tuesday.
In Sweden, house price data is released and Ohlsson speaks.
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