Economy Week Ahead: U.S. Inflation, China’s Exports in Focus
Shoppers in a San Francisco grocery store earlier this month. Economists forecast that year-over-year readings for the consumer-price index started to ease in April.
Photo:
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News
Policy makers, economists and investors will be watching for signs that inflation in the U.S. peaked in March and price pressures are slowly starting to ease.
Monday
China’s export boom is expected to ebb in April as the country’s stringent Covid-19 control measures disrupted factory output and the domestic supply chain. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecast that the country’s exports rose 3.9% in April from a year earlier, down from a 14.7% increase reported in March. Imports contracted 3% in April, economists said, following a 0.1% decline in March.
Tuesday
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President
John Williams
delivers a keynote address on U.S. monetary policy at a symposium hosted by the National Association for Business Economics and Deutsche Bundesbank, kicking off a full week for central bank speakers. Markets will be looking for more context and clarity on policy a week after the Fed executed its biggest interest-rate increase since 2000.
Wednesday
China’s consumer-price index likely rebounded in April as food prices rose. Economists expect inflation to rise 2% from a year earlier, higher than a 1.5% increase in March. The producer-price index, a measure of factory-gate inflation, is forecast to have retreated to 7.8% annual growth from 8.3% in March.
U.S. inflation surged to a new four-decade high of 8.5% in March. That might have been the peak. Economists forecast that year-over-year readings for the consumer-price index started to ease in April. While that would offer some assurance for policy makers that inflation is trending in the right direction, prices that consumers pay for many goods and services will continue to increase at a rapid clip—just not quite as rapid as in March.
Thursday
The U.K. economy is facing down rising inflation, slowing economic growth and higher interest rates, raising concerns of a potential recession. Still, economists expect gross domestic product landed in positive territory during the first quarter of the year as Covid-19 concerns faded and consumers stepped up spending on restaurants, travel and other services.
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Appeared in the May 9, 2022, print edition as ‘Economic Calendar.’
