It shapes up a quite a busy day as far as announcements go, with Europe and UK both featuring strongly.

Europe is releasing a whole swathe of data. This includes; German Retail Sales & Unemployment Change, French Consumer Spending & Prelim CPI, Italian Prelim CPI and European CPI & Core CPI Flash Estimates. All of the CPI figures are important these figures contribute to inflation within the respective economies. Inflation is vital to a growing economy (as long as it’s controlled and steadily increasing). Price increases can reflect consumer demand for products/services within the economy. This demand for a product/service at an increased price ensures money flows through the economy, thus allowing economic growth.

The UK are publishing some crucial figures later tonight. These include: Current Account, Final GDP, Nationwide HPI, Index of Services and Revised Business Investment. The most vital of these figures is the Current Account. The Current Account is vital as it’s trade related data. This has been brought further into focus by the fact that the UK Government recently began Brexit negotiations. While this data will not reflect trade over the last few days (when Article 50 was triggered), it will give markets a better look at the health of UK trade for the previous quarter leading up to the start of negotiations. This is also the last pre-Brexit Current Account data. It will be interesting to see what the data looks like when it is next released. Meanwhile, MPC Member Andy Haldane, is due to speak in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

Elsewhere around the world, the US is reporting Core PCE Price Index, Personal Spending, Personal Income, Chicago PMI, Revised UoM Consumer Sentiment and Revised UoM Inflation Expectations data. Canada is releasing GDP data. Finally, Fed Reserve Members, William Dudley and Neel Kashkari, are due to speak.