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Last week was extremely busy in terms of economic news. The first half of the week was dominated by the Euro and Aussie Dollar, which made new record highs and fresh 25-year highs against the USD respectively. However, the Greenback was rescued by an 11% weekly decline in the price of oil. This is the largest weekly fall in three years and may form a significant top. Although the Euro and Aussie have retreated from their highs the US Dollar negative trend continues.

This week will be quieter on the news front with US housing market data seen as the main focus. Last week saw an unexpected increase in Building Permits from 978K (revised) to 1091K and Housing Starts from 977K (revised) to 1066K. If traders believe that the trend will be carried forward into this week then they will be hedging their bets for better than expected Existing Home Sales and New Home Sales. Existing Home Sales are due on Thursday July 24th at 15:00 and are expected to fall from 4.99M to 4.93M. New Home Sales will be released on Friday July 25th at 15:00 and a decline from 512K to 508K is expected.

Apart from housing data it promises to be a very quiet week for the US in terms of high volatility events. The only other big news scheduled is Core Durable Goods Orders. Also due for release on Friday, the market is expecting -0.2% for June versus -0.9% in May.

Elsewhere the UK has the busiest week in store. The first high volatility event is due on Tuesday at 09:45 when BOE Governor King and Deputy Governor Gieve testify before the UK Treasury Committee. This will be followed on Wednesday July 23rd at 09:30 by the BOE MPC Meeting Minutes. The vote breakdown is expected to show an 8-1 split in favour of a hold at 5.00% with Blanchflower calling for a cut once again. On Thursday 24th at 09:30 UK Retail Sales for June will hit the wire. There was an unexpected gain of 3.5% in May and the consensus estimate is for this to be offset by a 2.5% decline in June. Before the week is up we will see UK GDP QoQ. The previous quarter's data has already been revised lower to 0.3% from 0.4% and the preliminary release for the most current data is expected to show 0.2%. It will be interesting to see if the BOE can fight inflation (CPI YoY stands at 3.8%) with interest rate hikes in the face of slowing economic growth.

Data from Canada also promises to be plentiful for the week ahead. On Tuesday at 13:30 we will see Core Retail Sales which are expected to show a 0.8% growth for June, down from the 1.1% seen in May. Wednesday will bring us Canadian Core CPI for the month of June. Analysts are expecting 0.2% growth, down slightly from the 0.3% seen in May.

Other high volatility events for the coming week are as follows:

Monday 21st:
02:30 - Australian PPI QoQ

Wednesday 23rd:
02:30 - Australian CPI QoQ
22:00 - RBNZ Interest Rate Statement

Thursday 24th:
09:00 - German Ifo Business Climate Index

Visual Analysis & Historical Data
This week the visual analysis and historical data tool will support the following data releases:

BOE MPC Meeting Minutes
Canadian Core CPI MoM
US Existing Home Sales
US New Home Sales

Although this week will be slightly quieter than last, RBA, BOE and FOMC Meeting Minutes promise to take the economic centre stage.

The RBA Meeting Minutes will be the first high volatility event of the week, 02:30 BST on Tuesday 20^th. Australian Interest Rates currently stand at 7.25% with no speculation of any immanent cuts.

Both the BOE Monetary Policy Committee and the Federal Open Market Committee Meeting Minutes will be released this Wednesday, May 21^st. The BOE will come first, at 09:30 London time with the Fed following at 19:00 BST. As you might expect, these events will draw heavy interest from traders and economists with high market volatility expected. The markets are firmly focused on whether either central bank sees the need for further near term interest rate cuts.

Specifically, traders will watch the MPC Member vote split from the last meeting. The decision was taken to keep the rate on hold at 5.00% and the weight of the majority decision will be watched very closely for clues to the pace and direction of future rate moves.

While the FOMC does not reveal any vote casting it does publish a detailed summary of the interest rate meeting. Traders will closely scrutinize this commentary for clues to future rate moves. At present the popular market opinion is that the US will leave rates on hold in the near term.

Prior to the data landing on Wednesday we will see US PPI and Core PPI. They will hit the wire on Tuesday at 13:30 London time, 08:30 EST. The raw Producer Price Index carries more weight than the Core release. Economists are expecting 0.4% MoM for the PPI and 0.2% for the Core reading.

Later in the week we will see more high-volatility events from the US and UK. On Friday we will see the UK GDP Second Estimate which is expected to come in unchanged at 0.4%. This will be followed at 15:00 BST by US Existing Home Sales. Following a modest but unexpected increase to 5.03 million units in the March announcement, economists are expecting a second straight monthly decline to 4.86 million.

Further high volatility events this week are as follows:

BOJ Press Conference following the BOJ Interest Announcement - Tuesday am
Swiss PPI MoM - Tuesday 08:15
German ZEW Economic Sentimant - Tuesday 10:00
German Ifo Business Climate Index - Wednesday 09:00
Canadian Core CPI - Wednesday 12:00
UK Retail Sales - Thursday 09:30
Canadian Core Retail Sales - Thursday 13:30

The trading week is slightly shorter than normal in Canada (Victoria Day, Monday 19^th) and Germany (Corpus Christi, Thursday 22^nd) with lighter volume and volatility expected during these trading sessions. For more info please see our 2008 market holiday calendar.

The Passion-Trading visual analysis and historical data tool will support the following releases this week:

US PPI MoM
BOE MPC Meeting Minutes
Canadian Core CPI MoM
US Existing Home Sales

For details on the scheduled economic speeches you can check out this week’s economic comment calendar.