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 Earlier in November a robust report on U.S. employment hardened
expectations for the Fed's first rate increase in nearly a decade
and if prices are shown to be rising steadily those views will
likely solidify.
Reuters polls see inflation a 1.9 percent year-on-year, unchanged
from the previous reading.
Minutes from the Fed's October meeting will also be published,
giving an insight into the Committee's decision to remove a key
sentence on global risks from its policy statement.
"We have had a strong October jobs report and Fed Chair Janet Yellen
herself referring to a December rate rise as a 'live possibility'
for the first time," said Chris Hare, economist at Investec.
"The coming week should shed a little more light on the prospects
for tightening this year."
While most U.S. data has been relatively upbeat, retail sales rose
less than expected in October, suggesting a slowdown in consumer
spending that could temper expectations of a strong pickup in
fourth-quarter economic growth.
In the meantime, Britain's Bank of England was once pegged as likely
to be the first major central bank to tighten policy but prices fell
again last month, data will probably show on Tuesday.
With inflation so far below its 2 percent target the BoE's Monetary
Policy Committee won't be raising its benchmark rate from a record
low 0.5 percent until at least April, a Reuters poll found, putting
it several months behind the Fed. [ECILT/GB]
British retail sales numbers on Thursday will offer clues as to how
consumers are faring.
"While inflation looks odds on to post its lowest rate since March
1960, we do not think this decline will worry the MPC too much, with
weak price pressures driven largely by lower energy prices rather
than domestic economic weakness," wrote Ruth Miller at Capital
Economics.
ASIA
No change in policy is expected from the Bank of Japan on Friday but
it could ease monetary policy further early next year, according to
nearly half the analysts surveyed by Reuters, as consumer prices
fall short of central bank forecasts. [ECILT/JP]
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GDP data on Monday will probably show Japan fell into a technical
recession in the third quarter, maintaining pressure on the BOJ and
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to support the world's third largest
economy.
South Africa's Reserve Bank will hold its repo rate at 6.0 percent
on Thursday, waiting until early next year before tightening. The
Hungarian and Indonesian central banks will also probably leave
policy unchanged. [ECILT/ZA]
In China, where Beijing has rolled out a flurry of support measures
since last year to avert a sharp slowdown, key data will show how
the country's housing market is performing and whether it is
supporting the struggling economy.
"Recently, we have seen an increasing number of cities reporting a
sequential home price increase, a trend which we think continued
despite a slowdown in home sales growth in October," said Rob
Carnell at ING. "Overall, we believe that China's growth prospects
depend on housing."
The world's second-largest economy grew a reported 6.9 percent in
the third quarter from a year earlier, the weakest pace since the
global financial crisis, but a pace many say likely overestimated
the real pace of growth.
(Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
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