Market movers ahead
- Overall, it looks like a fairly quiet week on the news front. In the US, industrial production and more Fed speeches should not give a big change to the outlook.
- China GDP for Q4 is set to show growth of 6.7% y/y. This would leave overall growth for 2017 at 6.8% or 6.9%.
- In the euro area, we are set to get more details on December inflation with the final release. We estimate UK inflation fell back below 3% in December.
- In Scandinavia, we expect the most interesting data to be Swedish house prices (HOX), where we look for a further decline in Stockholm flats of 2.6% m/m, taking the cumulated decline to 12% since August 2017.
Global macro and market themes
- We are still positive on equities, as global growth remains solid, although the acceleration phase is likely to be over soon.
- Inflation remains one of the most important topics this year. Despite higher oil prices, we expect core inflation to remain subdued.
- In our view, markets have priced the ECB too aggressively, as we see the first ECB hike in Q2 19.
- Increasing tension between the US and China is a cause for concern.