Markets Outlook: A loosening of coronavirus’s economic noose piques investor interest
Developments on the coronavirus will continue to be what piques investors’ interest this week, with several countries around the world gradually moving to ease lockdown measures over the next few weeks.
In the political sphere, the scheduled call between the US and China trade chiefs will garner some attention. However, the market has written President Trump’s trade bluster off as political grandstanding; we’ll soon find out if the level of the market’s complacency makes sense.
There’ll be another negotiating round next week between the UK and the EU on their future relationship, as the never-ending Brexit saga endures. Currently, the transition period is due to conclude at the end of the year, though both sides have until the end of June if they want to agree on an extension.
The market remains unmoved so far by economic data beats and misses. Nonetheless – and for the record – there’ll be several key data points with increasing amounts of hard data coming out for April. Starting with the US, next week sees the release of April's industrial production, retail sales and CPI figures, while there’ll also be the closely-watched weekly initial jobless claims on Thursday.
Meanwhile, in Europe, we get the first look at Q1 GDP for both the UK and Germany.
Finally, attention will also be on China where a monthly data dump consisting of industrial production and retail sales are released on Friday. China's data will remain of interest to extrapolate what the rebound might mean for countries that locked down later and the extent to which their economies will be able to recover.
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