A busy first full week of May is set to test policymakers and markets across several continents, with central banks in Sweden, Australia, Norway, Mexico, Poland, Malaysia and the Czech Republic all due to review interest-rate settings. In the US, Federal Reserve speakers including John Williams, Austan Goolsbee, Alberto Musalem and Beth Hammack are due to make remarks, while the Bank of Japan will publish minutes from its March policy meeting and the Reserve Bank of Australia will release its quarterly Monetary Policy Statement. The RBA says its next decision is due on 5 May, while the Czech National Bank and Norges Bank have meetings scheduled for 7 May.

The calendar is also heavily shaped by public holidays and political events. Japan is in the middle of Golden Week, with Constitution Day, Greenery Day and Children’s Day spanning the weekend into Tuesday. Friday brings VE Day observances in a number of European countries, including France and Ukraine, while local elections are taking place in the UK on Thursday.

On the data front, April purchasing managers’ surveys will fill out the global growth picture, alongside a dense run of US releases. Washington is due to publish productivity and unit labour cost figures, the monthly labour-market report, factory orders, new-home sales, motor vehicle sales, JOLTS data, consumer inflation expectations, construction sentiment, building permits, the University of Michigan/Reuters consumer-sentiment reading, the trade balance and weekly claims, among other indicators.

Asia will also generate a broad set of statistics. Japan and China are scheduled to release reserve figures, while Japan is due to report on its monetary base, average cash earnings and the economy watchers index. China’s trade balance is also on the list, alongside inflation readings in Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines, GDP updates from Indonesia and Hong Kong, and retail sales data from Singapore and Hong Kong.

Elsewhere, Europe, the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere will add more breadth to an already crowded week. Euro area releases include retail sales, industrial production and Sentix sentiment, while member states are set to publish industrial output, trade balances and retail figures. The UK and Switzerland will issue house-price, sales, confidence, inflation and unemployment data; Canada, Brazil and Mexico will report consumer prices, PMI and trade figures; and Australia, New Zealand and Turkey will also put out growth, labour, inflation and production numbers.

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Source: Noah Wire Services