Empire State manufacturing survey and Canadian manufacturing sales in focus – TDS

Analysts at TD Securities (TDS) offered a brief preview of Tuesday's second-tier US and Canadian macro data, scheduled to be released during the early North-American session.

Key quotes:

“The coming week will bring early indications of the macro impact of the viral outbreak. This will be welcome as the market has been operating within an information/data vacuum for some time.”

“The February round of manufacturing surveys will start with the New York Fed's Empire State data. A key focus will be whether the data show any sign of fallout from the coronavirus. We don't expect any major impact yet, but we forecast a modest decline in the headline index, to 4.0 from 4.8. More positively, we expect the housing market index to be up. Homebuilders' equities prices have been surging.”

“We expect manufacturing sales to decline by 0.1% in December (market: 0.7%) owing to a combination of weaker auto production and lower factory prices. While exports were up 1.9% m/m during the month, the increase was led by raw materials (crude oil, minerals) and exports of manufactured goods were actually lower on the month. Manufacturing volumes should post a mild increase, although we do not expect much of a contribution to industry-level GDP growth.”