Macroeconomics: The Week Ahead: 28 July – 1 August 2025

The Week Ahead – Preview: 

The start of the northern hemisphere peak summer holiday season may be upon us, but the new week is jam packed with major data (advance Q2 GDP readings, Eurozone & US inflation), central bank meetings (Fed & BoJ), the peak of the US Q2 earnings season, as well as key trade related meetings between US and EU, and US and China, and ends with the US tariffs deadline, which the US administration says will not be postponed again. 25 bps rate cuts are expected in South Africa, Chile and Colombia, but Brazil’s COPOM is expected to hold at 15.0%, and Singapore’s MAS to leave its policy settings unchanged.

Trade: EU and US meet on Sunday in UK, US and China on Tuesday and Wednesday in Sweden, a deal with India has been mooted as imminent, and one with South Korea would also be significant. Assuming the US administration is true to its word on no further postponement, then the full impact of tariffs will start to be felt over the next 3 to 6 months. The US-Japan deal agreed last week is more significant for the $550 Bln investment vehicle, than the 15% tariff rate, as that also gives Japan some ability to leverage its vast pool of assets to alleviate some of its fiscal woes (more below).

USA: Q2 advance GDP is expected to rebound to 2.4% SAAR from Q1’s 0.5%, as imports reverse their Q1 surge, with net exports seen contributing around 4.0 ppts to Q2 GDP, while Personal Consumption is seen picking up to a still lacklustre 1.5 from 0.5; a big offset to this will come from Business Investment and inventories. Jobs data is expected to see JOLTS Job Openings reverse down to 7.55 Mln, ADP Employment rebound to +80K from -33K, the Unemployment Rate edge back up 0.1 ppt to 4.2%, and Payrolls to slow to 109K. Personal Income & PCE will be pre-empted by Q2 GDP, but expected to show headline & core PCE deflators up 0.3% m/m, for a 0.2 ppt rise in headline to 2.5% y/y, and core unchanged at 2.7%. Consumer Confidence is expected to pick up on the back of the passage of the tax cuts in the ‘big beautiful bill’; Goods Trade Balance, Auto Sales and Construction Spending are also due. The politically besieged Fed is seen holding rates at 4.25/4.0%, though both Bowman and Waller are expected to vote for a cut, given recent comments, though many may well see their dissent as politically motivated, given Bowman is the Fed’s bank supervisor (and a Trump regime appointee), and Waller is in the mix to take over from Powell. The door to a September cut may be pushed open a little wider. But a more interesting question for Powell would be how he views emerging chatter that the new Fed chair may consider implementing ‘Yield Curve Control’ (YCC), especially as the ruling Republicans have not even paid lip service to bringing the US fiscal burden under any form of control. YCC would imply the end of QT and a very large amount of QE (cf. Japan), and as is well known QE is a catalyst for raging asset price inflation, and even greater inequality, and by extension deeper political divisions.

Eurozone: Advance Q2 GDP is expected to stall on the quarter, largely payback for the front loading of production and exports that boosted Q1 to 0.6%; Spain is seen up 0.6% q/q, France and Italy up 0.1%, while Germany is forecast to contract –0.1%. July provisional CPI is forecast to fall –0.1% m/m, to edge the y/y rate down to 1.9%, while core is seen steady at 2.3% y/y. German Unemployment is seen up a further 15K, thus rising every month since January 2023, with the Unemployment rate edging up 0.1 ppt to 6.4%, matching the peak seen during the height of the pandemic.

China: NBS PMIs are expected to see Manufacturing unchanged at 49.7 (some downside risks from slowing exports), and Non-manufacturing slipping 0.2 to 50.3, the latter hinging on summer holiday spending offsets the unwind of previous promotion effects. South China Morning Post reports that the US/China ‘tariff pause’ will (as most had expected) be extended a further 90 days. While the chatter on the Stockholm trade negotiations looks to be more about trying to get some agreement on sanctions on Russia, though there will be more interest in anything more concrete on easing US high-end semiconductor export restrictions, and more collaboration on AI.

Japan: Retail Sales are forecast to rebound 0.5% m/m, while auto sector production curbs due to a shortage of key magnets are expected to see Industrial Production drop –0.7% m/m. But all eyes will be on the BoJ meeting, particularly its updated set of forecasts, which may edge CPI forecasts up, but still see the long run rate just below target. It is expected to hold rates at 0.5%, and stick to the view that rates remain on an upward trajectory, but political instability may prompt it to hint that a hike is not imminent, particularly given pressure from opposition parties for more fiscal stimulus.

Australia: Q2 CPI is forecast to slow 0.2 ppt to 2.2% y/y, and core measures to drop 0.2/0.3 to 2.7%, thus opening the door to an August RBA rate cut. The UK looks to Consumer Credit, Mortgage Lending and Nationwide House Prices in a light week for data and events.

Earnings: Tech sector earnings will make the most headlines with Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft in the US, and elsewhere ARM, CATL, Samsung Electronics and Tokyo Electron on hand. But major oil companies (Chevron, Exxon, Shell & Total Energies), Miners (Albemarle, AngloGold, Rio Tinto, Vale), trading houses (Mitsui & Co, Posco, Sumitomo Corp), automakers (BMW, Ford, Mercedez Benz), Banks (Barclays, HSBC, Santander, UBS) and a very broad sectoral array of other major companies will also be reporting. Outlooks, investment plans and margins will be the main focal points.

There are 162 S&P 500 companies reporting this week, with worldwide corporate earnings highlights as compiled by Bloomberg News likely to include: AbbVie, Acwa Power, Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, Adidas,  ADP, Advantest, Aena SME, Aeon, Agnico Eagle Mines, Air Liquide, Air Products & Chemicals, Airbus, Allstate, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Altria Group, Amadeus IT, Amazon, Ambev, Ameren, American Tower, American Water Works, Ametek, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Apple, ArcelorMittal, Arch Capital Group, Ares Management, Argenx, ARM Holdings, Arthur J. Gallagher, Asian Paints, AstraZeneca, AvalonBay Communities, AXA, BAE Systems, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Banco Bradesco, Banco Santander, Bank Central Asia, Bank Rakyat Indonesia Persero, Barclays, BASF, Bharat Electronics, Blue Owl Capital, BMW, Boeing, Booking, Bristol-Myers Squibb, British American Tobacco, Brown & Brown, Cadence Design Systems, CaixaBank, Cameco, Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Capgemini, Carrier Global, Carvana, CBRE Group, Cellnex Telecom, Chevron, Cigna Group, Cloudflare, Coal India, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Coinbase Global, Colgate-Palmolive, Comcast, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), Corning, Credit Agricole, CVS Health, Daiichi Sankyo, Daimler Truck, Danone, Delta Electronics, Denso, Dexcom, Dominion Energy, Dr Ing hc F. Porsche, DSM-Firmenich, DSV, DTE Energy, EBay, Ecolab, Electronic Arts, Emcor Group, Emirates Telecommunications Group, Enbridge, Endesa, Enel, Engie, Entergy, Enterprise Products Partners, Equinix, Erste Group Bank, EssilorLuxottica, Exelon, Expand Energy, Extra Space Storage, Exxon Mobil, Fair Isaac, Ferrari, Ferrovial, Fomento Economico Mexicano, Ford Motor, Fujitsu, Garmin, GE HealthCare Technologies, GSK, Haleon, Hang Seng Bank, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Hanwha Aerospace, Hartford Insurance, Heidelberg Materials, Heineken, Hermes International, Hershey, Hindustan Unilever, Hitachi, Holcim, Howmet Aerospace, Hoya, HSBC Holdings, Humana, ICE, Illinois Tool Works, Imperial Oil, ING Groep, Ingersoll Rand, Intact Financial, International Paper, Intesa Sanpaolo, ITC, Itochu, Japan Tobacco, Johnson Controls International, KDDI, Kellanova, Kering, Keyence, Kimberly-Clark, KKR, KLA, Komatsu, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Kraft Heinz, L’Oreal, Lam Research, Larsen & Toubro, Legrand, Leonardo, Linde, London Stock Exchange Group, LPL Financial, Marubeni, Maruti Suzuki India, Mastercard, MediaTek, Mercedes-Benz, Merck, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, MicroStrategy, Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsui, Mizuho Financial Group, Mondelez International, Monolithic Power Systems, Murata Manufacturing, NEC, Nintendo, Norfolk Southern, Nucor, Old Dominion Freight Line, Orange, Oriental Land, Overseas-Chinese Banking, PayPal, PG&E, PPG Industries, PPL, Procter & Gamble, Prudential Financial, Public Storage, Qualcomm, Quanta Services, Reddit, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Republic Services, ResMed, Rio Tinto, Robinhood Markets, Roblox, Rocket, Rolls-Royce, Royal Caribbean Cruises, S&P Global, Safran, Saint-Gobain, Samsung, Sanofi, Saudi Telecom, Schneider Electric, Seagate Technology, Shell, Siemens Healthineers, Sika, Societe Generale, Southern, Spotify Technology, Standard Chartered, Starbucks, Stellantis, Stryker, Sumitomo Corp, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, Sun Pharmaceutical, Swiss National Bank, Sysco, Takeda Pharmaceutical, TC Energy, Telefonica, Tokyo Electron, Toyota Industries, Tradeweb Markets, Trane Technologies, UBS Group, UCB, Unilever, UnitedHealth Group, Universal Music, UPS, Vale, Ventas, Veolia Environnement, Veralto, Verbund, Verisk Analytics, Vertiv Holdings, Vici Properties, Vinci, Visa, Vulcan Materials, Waste Management, WEC Energy, Welltower, Willis Towers Watson, Wolters Kluwer, WuXi AppTec, WW Grainger, Xcel Energy, Xylem.