Tomorrow’s Macro Roadmap: Bank of Korea Takes Centre Stage as US Retail Sales Meet a Hawkish Fed Chorus
Macro: The Big Picture
The session's centrepiece sits in Asia, where the Bank of Korea announces its July decision at 03:00 CET, and the consensus is a 25 basis point rise to 2.75%. The Western data are led by US retail sales for June at 14:30 CET, alongside the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey and weekly jobless claims. Europe brings the UK's monthly GDP for May at 08:00 CET, the Swiss National Bank's meeting minutes at 09:30 CET, and Italy's final June inflation at 10:00 CET, with Canadian housing starts the day after the Bank of Canada's decision. Three Federal Reserve regional presidents also speak, Musalem, Logan and Schmid, a hawkish chorus into a market that has just moved to price out a near-term Fed rate rise.
Data Release Comments
UK monthly GDP for May is released at 08:00 CET, alongside industrial and manufacturing production, the trade balance and the index of services. The consensus looks for output to rise 0.1% on the month after April's 0.1% contraction, with the three-month rate easing to around 0.5%-0.6% from 0.7%. Some analysts are more downbeat, expecting a second consecutive monthly contraction due to higher petrol prices, the drag from elevated interest rates, and weak construction surveys; others look for a flat outturn, with risks skewed to the upside as housing and jobs surveys pick up from low levels.
Italy's final June inflation is released at 10:00 CET, expected to confirm the harmonised rate at 3.1% on the year and the domestic CPI at 3.0%. As a final print it rarely revises far from the flash reading, and there is limited sign so far of higher energy prices passing through into core. The euro-area trade balance for May follows at 11:00 CET, with the calendar carrying a small deficit against a broadly balanced recent trend.
Editor's Note: Neither release is a market mover on its own; the Italian final print is a confirmation, and the trade figure is second-order for the single currency. They matter mainly as inputs to the euro-area inflation and growth mosaic ahead of the next ECB meeting.
US retail sales for June are released at 14:30 CET. The consensus looks for headline sales to rise 0.2% to 0.3% on the month, sharply slower than May's 0.9%, with the control group that feeds GDP seen up around 0.5% after 0.7%. Some analysts are below consensus, looking for a flat headline as a fall in gasoline-station sales offsets a firmer control group, strong food services and another solid month for auto dealers.
Editor's Note: The headline will be dragged lower by June's drop in pump prices, so the control group is the cleaner read on underlying demand. A soft control print could reinforce this week's soft-inflation, rate-relief narrative, support bonds and cushion rate-sensitive equities, whereas a strong core could keep the hawkish-Fed case alive and prop up the dollar.
The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey for July is released at 14:30 CET, with the consensus looking for the index to rise to around 13 from 10.3. Some analysts see it slipping instead into single digits, even as the forward-looking new-orders and unfilled-orders components stay strong, and prices paid remain elevated.
Editor's Note: The survey is volatile month to month, so the internals carry more signal than the headline: new orders and unfilled orders point to the manufacturing pipeline, while prices paid versus prices received are the cleanest gauge of tariff and energy pass-through. A hot prices-paid reading would sit awkwardly against this week's soft consumer inflation. For markets, a hot prices-paid reading could weigh on bonds.
Weekly US jobless claims are released at 14:30 CET, with initial claims expected to be little changed at around 215,000 to 217,000 and continuing claims near 1.81 million. Some analysts look for a seasonal tick higher toward 220,000, noting that claims usually fall during the Independence Day holiday week and then rise. Also due at 16:00 CET are the NAHB housing-market index, seen unchanged at 35, May business inventories and June pending home sales.
Editor's Note: Claims remain low by recent-year standards, consistent with a labour market that is cooling but not cracking, a backdrop that keeps the Fed's attention on the inflation side of its mandate rather than on employment.
Australia's July consumer inflation expectations are released at 03:00 CET, with the prior reading at 5.5%. The gauge is watched for signs that price expectations are becoming entrenched, a consideration for the Reserve Bank of Australia's next move.
Editor's Note: Neither print is a first-tier mover, but the Australian inflation-expectations gauge feeds directly into the debate over whether the RBA still has tightening ahead, so a further rise could reinforce the hawkish tail for the Australian dollar.
Central Banks
The Bank of Korea announces its July policy decision at 03:00 CET, with consensus for a 25-basis-point increase to 2.75% from 2.50%. The case for tightening rests on inflation running above target, a weak won and rising home prices, which the central bank has flagged as reasons to move. The move is widely expected among forecasters, with several looking for a unanimous vote and framing it as the start of a gradual tightening cycle. The recent pullback in oil prices suggests that near-term inflation stress has peaked, even as Middle East risk lingers.
Editor's Note: A quarter-point hike is largely the base case, so the won and the front end will most likely react less to the decision than to the guidance. Confirmation that the central bank sees room for further tightening could extend the won's support, lift short rates, and split Korean equities between a firmer financial sector and rate-sensitive names, whereas an unexpected hold or dovish language on the growth-inflation trade-off could be read as the more dovish surprise. Rising home prices give the decision a financial-stability overlay that a pure inflation read would miss. Some analysts already sketch a path of further quarter-point steps towards a terminal rate near 3.5%, so the guidance on pace matters more than the near-certain move itself.
The Swiss National Bank publishes the summary of its 18 June monetary policy assessment at 09:30 CET. At that meeting, the central bank left its policy rate unchanged at 0%. Its conditional inflation forecast, based on the rate staying at 0% across the horizon, puts average annual inflation at 0.6% in 2026, 0.6% in 2027 and 0.7% in 2028, with inflation seen rising slightly further in the near term on higher oil-product prices tied to the Middle East. The SNB expected growth of around 1% in 2026 and 1.5% in 2027. On the currency, it reiterated an increased willingness to intervene in the foreign exchange market to counter a rapid and excessive appreciation of the Swiss franc that would jeopardise price stability.
Editor's Note: The summary is backwards-looking and typically a limited market mover. It matters mainly if it shifts the perceived reaction function, for instance, any greater tolerance for franc strength or a firmer reference to intervention. The full monetary policy assessment of 18 June carries the conditional inflation-forecast chart.
Central Bank Speech Previews
St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem speaks at 00:30 CET. In remarks in May, he said inflation is running "meaningfully above" the Fed's 2% target and that the balance of risks has shifted more towards inflation than employment. He expects inflation to resume converging towards 2% in the second half of 2026 but has flagged a reasonable possibility that above-target inflation proves more persistent and has pointed to the oil supply shock from the Iran war as an upside pressure.
Editor's Note: Musalem sits on the hawkish side of the committee: his framing that inflation risk now outweighs employment risk aligns him with the Warsh-Waller camp, which has kept a July move on the table. Watch whether this week's soft CPI shifts his tone at all, or whether he echoes Warsh in treating one print as insufficient.
Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, a voting member of the FOMC this year, speaks at 18:30 CET at an event in Houston. On 9 July, she argued the Fed's open-market operations should be centrally cleared, buying and selling Treasuries through central clearing agencies rather than directly with primary dealers. In June, she said higher interest rates could be needed later in the year to fully restore price stability, and in May, she issued a statement on her FOMC dissent, having grown increasingly concerned about how long it would take inflation to return to the 2% target.
Editor's Note: Logan is the most market-relevant of the three: a 2026 voter and an established hawk who has already dissented this year. Any steer on whether she still sees a case for higher rates, especially after this week's softer CPI, could carry directly into July FOMC pricing. Her plumbing remarks are structurally important but not a policy-path signal.
Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid, a non-voter on the FOMC this year, speaks at 19:25 CET. In May, at the Reykjavik Economic Conference, he said that with inflation running above the Fed's 2% definition of price stability for over five years, "now is not the time to let down our guard," and that the Fed must keep signalling its commitment and willingness to act. In a March outlook speech, he judged inflation to be running "closer to 3 per cent than the Fed's 2 per cent objective."
Editor's Note: Schmid does not vote this year, but he has been among the more consistently hawkish presidents, reluctant to declare victory on inflation. His remarks reinforce the committee's inflation-first message rather than move the near-term path, and are most interesting for any reaction to the June CPI.