Market movers ahead
- In a week with few important data releases and scheduled events, we expect markets to remain focused on global politics – there have been encouraging signs on trade policy lately but increasing worries over Syria and the US-Russia relationship.
- US retail sales should be interesting, as they have been weak lately but the underlying case for consumption growth remains strong.
- UK data is likely to show increasing wage growth and core inflation, supporting the case for a rate hike next month.
- We expect a lot of attention on Swedish house prices for March – our indicator shows that the decline in Stockholm apartment prices continued and there was a very large decline in trading activity.
Global macro and market themes
- Geopolitical risk has resurfaced but despite the heightened uncertainty from a weakening growth cycle and the trade issue, volatility has stayed subdued and market moves have generally been muted with the RUB a key exception.
- We still expect equities to rebound, while rate and FX markets are taking a breather from recent ECB and Riksbank repricing and the USD decline.
- Norwegian inflation was much lower than expected in March, but that was only due to temporary factors, and the new wage agreement actually points clearly towards higher inflation.
