Economic Events: June FOMC Minutes, BoJ Meeting, China June Data

In a data-light week, the focus will be on the release of the minutes from the June 18-19 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, and on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who will speak at a National Bureau of Economics Research conference shortly after.

The minutes should shed some light on the FOMC's plan for the path of future policy and its decision to tie the conclusion of asset purchases to the unemployment rate.

“We expect that the pace of the asset purchases will be trimmed from $85 billion a month to around $75 billion at the meeting scheduled for September,” said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, in a note to clients. “It will also be interesting to see if the Fed had a more general discussion about how to unwind its ultra-loose monetary policies.”

In Europe, this week’s key data releases will be May’s industrial production figures for the single currency region and its major economies. A further fall in production is likely to add to evidence that any recovery, even in Germany, will be modest.

In the UK, official figures for industrial production and trade in May, both released on Tuesday, will show whether the recent turnaround in the manufacturing surveys has been borne out in reality. But neither release is likely to move the markets.

Turning to Japan, the markets will probably focus this week on the conclusion of the Bank of Japan’s Policy Board meeting on Thursday. “The Bank of Japan will surely have been pleased by recent economic and market developments, and the immediate pressure for additional easing has faded,” Marcel Thieliant and Julian Jessop of Capital economics said. “We do not therefore expect any major policy announcements, whilst any forecast revisions in the interim update of the ‘Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices’ are likely to be positive.”

Elsewhere, a batch of Chinese economic data due for release this week will be closely scrutinized for clues as to whether the weakness seen in China’s twin June manufacturing PMIs reflects a true softness in the economy or mostly a result of the government’s rebalancing efforts. (READ MORE: China June Data Preview)

Below are entries on the economic calendar for July 9-12. All listed times are EDT.

Tuesday

7:30 a.m. – NFIB small business optimism for June.

Non-U.S.:

E28 -- Finance Ministers set the conversion rate for Latvia's currency, the lat, to the euro.

E28 -- ECOFIN meeting in Brussels.

E17 -- ECB Executive Board Member Asmussen speaks at high-level Transatlantic finance initiative in London.

China – PPI and CPI for June.

UK -- Industrial output and manufacturing output for May.

Japan -- Corporate goods price index for June.

Japan -- Index of tertiary industry activity for May.

Wednesday

7 a.m. -- Mortgage Bankers Association Mortgage Index of mortgage applications for the week ending July 5.

10 a.m. -- Inventories at wholesalers increased for a second month in April, and sales at wholesalers increased by 0.5 percent in April after declining by 1.4 percent in March. Consensus expects wholesale inventories to increase again in May, this time by 0.3 percent.

2 p.m. – June FOMC minutes. Investors will be looking for indications of how soon the Fed will start to taper QE3, how quickly they will conclude asset purchases altogether, and when the first interest rate hike is likely to begin. Bank of America Merrill Lynch economists also expects a lively debate over what conditions would warrant the second and subsequent cuts, with an emphasis on the Fed potentially taking some time to fully wind down QE3. Further debate over the exit strategy would be notable as well. Comments about whether the Fed will wait until well after the unemployment rate hits 6.5 percent before the first rate hike, whether the inflation rate must rise to a certain level to consider rate hikes, and potential changes in the Fed’s forward guidance thresholds, all would get attention.

4:10 p.m. -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (FOMC voter) speaks on "A Century of U.S. Central Banking: Goals, Frameworks Accountability" before the National Bureau of Economic Research conference, "The First 100 Years of the Federal Reserve: The Policy Record, Lessons Learned, and Prospects for the Future" in Massachusetts.

Non-U.S.:

Brazil -- Selic overnight rate.

Thailand -- Benchmark interest rate.

Australia -- RBA Assistant Governor (Financial markets) Debelle speaks (Sydney).

E17 -- ECB Executive Board Member Asmussen speaks at the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia.

China – Exports and imports for June.

China – Foreign reserves for June.

China – New loans, M2 growth for June.

Germany – Final reading of June HICP, CPI.

France – Industrial production for May.

Japan – Core machinery orders for May.

Thursday

8:30 a.m. – Economists look for a 0.1 percent rise in June import prices, and a 0.1 percent fall in June export prices.

8:30 a.m. – Initial jobless claims probably declined to 340,000 for the week ending July 6 from 343,000 in the prior week. According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the seasonal factor for the week is set to adjust claims lower (it adjusted claims higher in the prior week), but claims will already be biased lower due to the July 4 holiday. Furthermore, a big reason for the shift in the seasonal factor is because automakers typically shut down factories during this week for re-tooling purposes, which would normally lead to an influx of jobless claims. However, earlier in the year the Big 3 U.S. automakers — Chrysler, Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) and General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) — announced that they were forgoing this shutdown period in many, if not all, of their factories in order to keep up with strong demand for autos. Seasonal distortions resulting from this change in the timing of retooling will likely persist through the next several weeks.

2 p.m. – Economists expect the U.S. to have posted a federal budget deficit of $10 billion in June, which would be a $50 billion narrowing relative to June 2012 and put the budget deficit at $636 billion for the first nine months of the fiscal year.

Non-U.S.:

Serbia -- Repo rate.

Japan -- BoJ target rate.

Indonesia -- Bank Indonesia reference rate.

E28 -- Consultation by the E.U. Commission on the structural reform of the banking sector.

Korea -- South Korea 7-day repo rate.

E17 -- ECB Executive Board Member Coeuré speaks on “Growth and Investment Opportunities in Europe” in Paris.

E17 -- ECB publishes monthly bulletin.

Malaysia -- Overnight rate.

Chile -- Overnight rate target.

Peru -- Reference rate.

Friday

8:30 a.m. – Producer prices for finished goods should rise 0.5 percent in June, same as the increase seen in April. Energy prices should account for a disproportionate share of the rise, as gasoline prices turned around last month. Stripping away the volatile food and energy components, core PPI should once again come in at 0.1 percent for the third straight month. Pipeline prices remain quite weak, as both intermediate goods prices and crude materials prices have dropped in each of the prior two months. Economists expect a 2.0 percent annual inflation rate for the headline PPI in June (up from 1.7 percent in May), and a 1.6 percent annual inflation rate for core PPI (the same pace as three of the prior four months). These readings are consistent with continued soft consumer price inflation.

9:55 a.m. -- After reaching a post-recession high of 84.5 in May, consumer sentiment declined slightly to 84.1 in June. Economists expect the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment to bounce back to 85.0 in the preliminary June survey. This would be the highest level since July 2007.

2:45 p.m. -- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard (FOMC voter) participates, and Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser (FOMC non-voter) speaks on monetary policy and the economic outlook, before a panel at the Fifth Annual Rocky Mountain Economic Summit hosted by the Global Interdependence Center in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

5:15 p.m. -- Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams (FOMC non-voter) participates in discussion "A Defense of Moderation in Monetary Policy" before the Society for Computational Economics 19th International Conference in Canada.

Non-U.S.:

E17 -- ECB Vice President Constâncio speaks on “Asia’s role in the Global Economy Forum” in Singapore.

Mexico -- Overnight rate.

Singapore – Q2 GDP, advance estimate.

E17 -- Industrial production for May.

Sources: Central banks, European Commission, Reuters, Market News, Capital Economics, Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Nomura Securities.