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US retail sales control group
The top economic release for American traders comes right at the beginning of the week with the March retail sales report. The market is most-focused on inflation and jobs data right now but retail sales should offer a clue on how well spending is holding up.
The consensus is for a 0.3% rise, 0.4% ex-autos and 0.3% in the control group. What could make this a tough report to predict is that Easter fell in March this year, which is tough to seasonally adjust for.
At the same time as retail sales (8:30 am ET, 1230 GMT), we get the Empire Fed and Canadian manufacturing sales. Then 90 minutes later we get the NAHB housing market index and business inventories.
S&P 500 futures are up 24 points and I suspect the market would cheer a soft retail sales number. If so, we could get a big unwind of the 76 point fall on Friday, in large part to growing market expectations that Israel limits its response to the weekend attacks.
