The Business News Week Ahead

Canadian and US employment updates on Friday will be the week's key but sharing the highlights will be ISM manufacturing on Monday, German manufacturers' orders on Thursday as well as a run of industrial production reports from Italy on Thursday and France and Germany on Friday. Consumer readings will be offered on Wednesday with Eurozone retail sales and on Friday with Japanese household spending. Central bank meetings may be short on drama when it comes to policy moves (which are mostly full throttle) but their economic outlooks are worth tracking; the Reserve Bank of Australia meets on Tuesday and the Bank of India, which does have room to cut rates, on Thursday. Expectations for Friday's North American data point to substantial but slowing gains in employment for both the US and Canada together with significant drops in unemployment rates.