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25.03.2008 - The week ahead – durables vs. Ifo

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Date: 2008-03-25 11:46

The US durable orders report is sometimes more important just like prices often change purely because of a sentiment on the market. Only because of a one-off surge in those orders in December, the 4th quarter GDP change was above the surface. While the GDP final estimate (due on Thursday) isn’t likely to have a major impact, the report on durables will indicate if we are about to see a drop in the GDP on April 30th when the advance data for the 2nt quarter is being released.


The report is released on Wednesday, just like German’s Ifo (a business climate index, which surprised on the upside for two months in a row), expected to slide to 103,5 points and a report on new home sales. The last one will be looked at closely, since investors want to know if the good news from the secondary market (where sales were up for the 1st time in 8 months) is about to be confirmed. The market consensus, gathered before the Easter, anticipated another fall in sales – to 576k annualized. The end of the week will be important in Japan, where data on unemployment, retail sales and consumer prices will be published. Those releases will shed some more light on renewed speculations about the rate cut.


Przemysław Kwiecień
Chief Economist