The signing of Phase-1 trade deal in focus this week – Deutsche Bank

Analysts at Deutsche Bank suggest the main highlights for the week ahead will be the signing of the Phase One trade deal between the U.S. and China (Wednesday).

• "US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said over the weekend that an English-language version of the agreement will be released this week. It's quite remarkable that we still don't know much in the way of details so eyes will be on this. We'll also see the start of US earnings season with a number of banks reporting. On Tuesday we'll hear from JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. Then on Wednesday we'll get Bank of America, UnitedHealth Group, Goldman Sachs, US Bancorp and BlackRock. Finally on Thursday, we'll hear from Morgan Stanley and BNY Mellon. In terms of data CPI (Tuesday), retail sales (Thursday), and consumer confidence (Friday) are the main highlights in the US. In China we have trade data (Tuesday) and Q4 GDP/retail sales/industrial production (Friday). So we'll have quite a good idea about momentum in the Chinese economy by the end of the week. In Europe industrial production numbers (Tuesday), and the flash CPI (Friday) are the highlights. The UK also sees CPI (Wednesday) and retail sales (Friday).
• In terms of central banks over the coming week, publications to watch for include the Beige Book from the Fed on Wednesday, and then the ECB's monetary policy account of its December meeting (and Christine Lagarde's first as ECB President) on Thursday.
• Over to politics now, and there's a number of upcoming events this week. In the US, it's the last Democratic primary debate on Tuesday before primary voting kicks off in February. Former Vice President Biden is currently ahead in the national polling according to the average on RealClear Politics. However, the polls in the first two states to vote in February, Iowa and New Hampshire, are much tighter, with the RealClear Politics average putting the 3 top candidates in Iowa between 20% and 22%, so it's a tight race going into the caucuses there on 3rd February."