Markets Overview

Wednesday’s global economic docket kicked off with NewZealand’s trade data for April earlier this morning. Australiawill print Q1 construction data and April skilled vacancies at9.30am Singapore time.

    Meanwhile, IFO data from Germany is on the agenda. Themarket survey calls for business climate reaching 106.8points in May, a marginal 0.2 improvement. The currentassessment is seen inching up to 113.3 during the samemonth. The expectations anticipate an improvement to 100.8from 100.4 previously.

    In the US, the advance April trade balance for goods will bereleased, expected to reveal a wider advance goods tradedeficit of $60.0bn, rebounding from a surprisingly narrow$57.1bn in March. March FHFA house price data and MayMarkit services PMI data is also due. Fed speakers arePhiladelphia Fed President Patrick Harker again, who willbe speaking at a forum. Minneapolis Fed President NeelKashkari, and Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan will alsobe speaking.

    Released this morning, Singapore’s 1Q GDP grew 1.8%y/y (0.2% q/q SAAR), in line with the advance estimatesreleased in April. The q/q SAAR growth of 0.2% also wasslightly better than the 0.0% growth reported during theadvance estimates, a sthe contraction in the manufacturingsector was smaller than expected (at -1.0% y/y, rather than-2.0% y/y expected earlier). With that, the governmentmaintained its 2016 GDP growth forecast of between 1%and 3%. Later today, Thailand and the Philippines will reporttrade data from the Philippines and Thailand.