The Week Ahead for 8 April 2024

This week, the markets are a little quiet, with hardly anything happening on the first part of the week, overall, and not much in the latter half, and in Spain, we do have a splattering of local holidays this week.  

Monday

Monday is a local holiday in many towns across the Valencia region, celebrating San Vicente de Ferrer, who was born in Valencia, and so it is a holiday in the city of Valencia, as well as Torrevieja, Elche, Algorfa, Benijofar, Bigastro, and others.

The week will begin with the publication of industrial production and the trade balance for February in Germany. In line with the PMIs of the manufacturing sector in March (41.9 points vs. 42.5 points in February) and the evolution of the confidence indicators of households and companies, the industrial sector and foreign trade, which will foreseeably continue to show the weakness of the leading European power.

Likewise, on Monday we will know the Sentix index of investment confidence for April in the Eurozone.

An informal meeting of European Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries takes place.

Back in Spain, just after midday the signing of the Social Security Agreement between Spain and the US to promote the mobility of insured workers and stimulate bilateral economic activity will take place.

Unprecedented gloom will shadow much of North America on Monday as a total solar eclipse passes above parts of the continent, creating night-like darkness in localised areas for a few minutes. Some critics have already used the natural phenomenon to ridicule solar power users for their lack of foresight! That problem doesn´t present itself so much in the UK and Spain as our next full solar eclipse is scheduled for the year 2090. Viewers in the northwest of England and Scotland will be able to enjoy a small part of this event, just don´t look directly at the light.

Monday also marks 3 years since the Duke of Edinburgh passed away.

Tuesday

Tuesday is a quiet day for European markets in general, with France being the only noticeable location of interest where the commercial balance will be published.

The WHO Global Hepatitis report is published on Tuesday.

Wednesday

Wednesday is a holiday in the Spanish autonomous communities of Melilla and Ceuta.

House buying statistics in the Eurozone in general will dominate Wednesday.

BBVA bank will pay dividends, Banco Sabadell holds their general shareholder meeting, and in the USA, Delta Airlines publish their results.

In the UK, the real-life drama of Mr Bates versus the Post Office continues, as the penultimate phase of the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry begins with a day of evidence from Alan Bates. Paula Vennells is scheduled to give evidence in May and Fujitsu engineer Gareth Jenkins in June.

Also, on Wednesday, Tesco will proudly tell everyone how much money they have made during a cost-of-living crisis when they publish their results.

Thursday

Thursday is a local holiday in Alicante city, not the province.

The focus of investor attention will be on the ECB meeting that will take place on Thursday, April 11. Although no change in official interest rates is expected, markets expect the European monetary authority to define its next movements. Specifically, investors expect the ECB to begin the process of easing its monetary policy at its next meeting in June, when it would lower reference interest rates by 25 bp. 

In the UK, with talk last week about the possibility of paying for an ambulance to reduce the risk of you dying during the wait, NHS England key services performance data and A&E indicators are published on Thursday.

Friday

A local holiday on Friday is celebrated in the Valencia town of Cullera.

This week will end with the final reading of the CPI for March in Spain, Germany and France, as well as various relevant data in the United Kingdom, highlighting GDP, industrial production and the trade balance.

The General Shareholders’ Meeting of Ferrovial and Telefónica will take place.

In the UK we will have the Index of Production, construction industry output, and overseas trade reports.

NOAA publishes their monthly global climate report.

The Next Week Ahead

That was this week´s roundup of what will be making the news headlines in Spain, the UK, and Europe, with a focus on the business and markets, you can read daily updates on marknolanspodcast.com, as well as spaintoday.news, and theleader.info for local news.

There are more local holidays next week, including Santa Pola and Seville, and Roadpol, the European Traffic Police Network, will be holding a speed awareness and enforcement campaign, more details, plus more, next time.