US Retail Sales (Apr) – 16/05 – US retail sales growth has been reasonably resilient so far year to date, starting strongly in January at 2.4%, before slowing to 0% in February, while March was revised up from -0.8% to -0.4%.

Inflation has continued to fall back against a backdrop of a resilient labour market, while recent earnings numbers have been broadly positive which augurs well for this week's numbers from Walmart and Target. The recent turmoil in the US banking sector does appear to be giving consumers some pause when it comes to their spending patterns, with the weakness in March, which could spill over into this week's April retail sales numbers, especially given that one year inflation expectations jumped sharply higher during the month to a 6-month high of 4.6%. Consensus is for a 0.4% gain. 

EU Q1 GDP – 16/05 – the recent Q1 GDP numbers from Spain, Italy, Germany and France showed an EU economy that was slightly more resilient than was expected...

...at the end of last year, largely due to the milder winter which kept energy costs down. Nonetheless the recent EU flash Q1 GDP numbers were a little surprising as they came in weaker than expected at 0.1%, at the end of last month, while Q4 was revised lower to a -0.1% contraction. This week's final Q1 numbers aren't expected to provide any surprises but given the weakness in manufacturing there is a concern that any recovery in Q2 might be snuffed out by the ECB's continued tightening measures.          

easyJet H1 23 – 18/05 – airlines have seen some steady gains so far this year with the easyJet share price hitting its highest level since June last year in mid-April when the airline reported its Q2 results.

The airline said it expects H1 losses to be less than expected, about £400m, while saying it expects to exceed full year expectations of profits of £260m. A 35% rise in passengers in Q2, and a 43% rise in revenue per seat was followed by a reiteration of its H2 guidance of 56m seats, a rise of 9%. An upgrade to easyJet holidays guidance to 60% growth year on year was also welcome. Group revenue is expected to come in at £2.69bn, while costs are expected to be around £3.1bn, due to higher fuel prices. The load factor in Q2 was 88% with an expectation that this moves into the mid 90% during H2.

Read next: Bank of England raised the interest rate, UK unemployment data go out tomorrow| FXMAG.COM