US retail sales highlight the North American economic calendar

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.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.