It is a relatively quiet start to an otherwise busy week, but there are still a few announcements set to be made.

Headlining the announcements is once again the US, with a few releases set for the early hours of tomorrow morning. These releases include: Core PCE Price Index, Personal Spending, Personal Income and Pending Home Sales. The Price Index and the Income & Spending figures helps form CPI and inflation data as it tracks the spending habits of consumers. More spending by consumers tends to push inflation higher, which can have an effect on monetary policy decisions. Higher income figures means more money for consumers to spend, so the two figures go hand in hand. The PCE figure denotes a change of goods and services purchased by consumers. A higher figure can suggest an increase in demand, which is a component of inflation. Pending Home Sales is just that, homes that are awaiting sale. These are homes that are under contract and are waiting for the transaction to close. This forms part of the housing sector ‘pipeline’ of activity and is an important gauge of the strength of the housing sector.

Also from the US is the ongoing controversy surrounding the new President. He has enacted quite a few controversial executive orders. With the amount of backlash throughout the nation, will this have an effect on markets? Will the proposal of a border wall with Mexico and a withdrawal from the TPP make markets nervous about the US potentially becoming isolated from the rest of the world? Will the amount of negative news about Donald Trump’s new policies start to weigh on markets and erode confidence?

Meanwhile, elsewhere around the world, Japan is releasing Retail Sales data, Europe is publishing German Prelim CPI & Spanish Flash GDP and Switzerland reporting its KOF Economic Barometer. Finally, Australia’s Reserve Bank Assistant Governor, Guy Debelle, is set to speak.