Today the economic calendar is quite busy with reports, from GDP data, through PMIs and predictions about the US job market.
First off, Australia published its official GDP growth rate for the second quarter of 2021, which was better than anticipated at 9.6%, with QoQ growth at 0.7%. These positive reports served to offset a somewhat disappointing manufacturing PMI for August.
Manufacturing PMIs also came in from a series of European countries. Spain and Italy both beat the forecasts, while Germany and the eurozone as a whole failed to meet investors’ expectations in August. However, this was not enough to weaken the euro (neither was Germany’s disappointing retail sales report).
Non-EU members Switzerland and the United Kingdom also did well in terms of PMI data.
Later today we expect the ISM and Markit manufacturing PMIs out of the United States. An unrelated crucial report from the US today was the August ADP employment data, which was considerably below the forecast, indicating that the private sector did not create as many jobs last month as economists had hoped for.
The ADP might be a predictor of a poor NFP report this Friday. Still, it is worth remembering that last month’s ADP and NFP reports diverged significantly, so a disappointment today does not mean that non-farm payrolls will also not meet the forecasts on Friday.
In the commodity markets, today there’s much excitement about crude oil, because OPEC’s official forecast for demand this year and next year was revised upward. Thus, OPEC+ members will most likely agree to continue increasing oil output by 400,000 barrels per day without fears of lowering the price of oil.
As for the stock market, we expect US indices to grow only slightly today and tomorrow, in anticipation of Friday’s non-farm payrolls report.
