This week, the figures season will continue to kick off at home while the Federal Reserve comes up with a new interest rate decision and the macro agenda is also quite filled. Monday we start with a whole series of composite Purchasing Manager indices from European countries as well as Japan and the United States.

A day later, leading indicators are also on the program, in the form of business confidence in Germany and Belgium, but also US consumer confidence.

As always, this first figure comes from the Conference Board and a second comes from the University of Michigan on Friday. On Wednesday, French consumer confidence is planned, Thursday the German and Friday the European.

Inflation and interest rates

Wednesday will be dominated by the US central bank. The Federal Reserve is coming up with a new interest rate decision and especially the accompanying comments are of interest to investors. Now that the latest inflation rate has risen to a whopping 7 percent, policymakers are sounding more and more hawkish.

“We expect the FOMC to further anchor the market expectation that interest rates will be raised by 25 basis points in March,” economists at Japanese bank Nomura said in a preview.

The market is already expecting four interest rate hikes for this year and the full buyback programme should be completed in March. Possibly, the Fed already has its cards looked into the future winding down of that gigantic balance sheet with bought-up debt.

Another element, in addition to inflation, that the Federal Reserve looks at when defining its policy is the labour market. On Thursday, the weekly aid applications come out again.

A growth rate for the world’s largest economy is also planned that day. On Friday we conclude the week with French and Belgian economic growth, Belgian inflation and the European money supply. Personal income and spending in the US, along with the PCE core inflation that is important to the Fed, will also be carefully studied.

Business figures

The figures season was already busy abroad last week,but next week the agenda is really full.

On Monday, there are figures from Halliburton and IBM. Remy Cointreau, 3M, American Express, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, Verizon, Microsoft and Texas Instruments will open the books on Tuesday.

Wednesday we look in the direction of Abbott Laboratories, AT&T, Boeing, Kimberly-Clark, Intel and Tesla.

Thursday will be very busy with results from Samsung, Deutsche Bank, SAP, easyJet, Comcast, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Sherwin-Williams, Nucor, Visa and Apple.

On Friday, there are still figures from UniCredit, Caterpillar, Colgate-Palmolive and Chevron.

Tuesday NSI opens the books, Thursday RoodMicrotec. Friday is the turn of Signify and WDP. SnowWorld is holding an extraordinary shareholders ‘ meeting.