Market movers today
In the US, capital goods orders data for January is due out. These figures will give us a first impression of whether investments continue to gain momentum as seen during the second half of 2016.
In the euro area, we face a week with many interesting data releases. Monday kicks off with M3 money supply and private sector loan growth for January. Loans to households increased 2.0% in December, up from 1.9% in November, while loans to non-financial corporations were up 2.3% in December from 2.1% in November. We expect loan growth to the private sector in January to remain around the December levels.
In the UK, focus continues to be on the passing of the EU exit legislation, enabling the UK government to trigger Article 50. The bill is currently in the House of Lords and the socalled committee stage begins on today, where the Lords will discuss and vote on amendments. It remains our base case that the Lords will not delay the bill and the UK remains on track to trigger Article 50 by the end of March, perhaps at the EU summit in Malta on 9-10 March. If the Lords agree the amendments, the bill will go back to the House of Commons for approval and then back and forth between the two chambers until the wording is agreed upon.
In Denmark, the week kicks off with business confidence data. Manufacturing confidence fell slightly in January after climbing strongly in December, so it will be interesting to see which way the wind blows in February. In Sweden, household lending data is due to be released today.
Selected market news
As we await the budget proposal from the White House, a Reuters story reported that it will contain lofty defence spending increases and will among other things establish ‘a more robust presence in key international waterways and chokepoints’. The increase in defence spending is expected to be financed partly by cuts to the US State Department, Environmental Protection Agency and other non-defence programmes. However, as stated by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in an interview on Sunday, the budget proposal will spare big social welfare programmes such as Social Security and Medicare from any cuts.
President Trump’s pick for secretary of the Navy, Philip Bilden, withdrew from consideration yesterday citing government conflict-of-interest rules. In an area where the presidency has placed such high strategical importance, it now leaves Trump without nominees to head both the Navy and the Army, as Vincent Viola withdrew his considerations to head the Army earlier this month.
Following a week with new all-time highs in the major US stock indices, the Asian morning has been off to a sluggish start with Nikkei and Hang Seng trading slightly below par at the time of writing. With most major currencies ‘on hold’ as we await Trump’s speech on Tuesday, we have seen the downward pressure on EURDKK ease a bit and it is now trading slightly above the central bank’s intervention target of 7.4330.
