by Calculated Risk on 4/28/2018 08:11:00 AM

The key report this week is the April employment report on Friday.

Other key indicators include the March Personal Income and Outlays report, March Trade deficit, April ISM manufacturing and non-manufacturing indexes, April auto sales, and the April ADP employment report.

The FOMC meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, and no change to policy is expected.

----- Monday, Apr 30th -----
8:30 AM: Personal Income and Outlays for March. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in personal income, and for a 0.4% increase in personal spending. And for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.2%.

9:45 AM: Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for April. The consensus is for a reading of 57.8, up from 57.4 in March.

10:00 AM: Pending Home Sales Index for March. The consensus is for a 1.0% increase in the index.

10:30 AM: Dallas Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for April. This is the last of the regional Fed surveys for April.

----- Tuesday, May 1st -----
10:00 AM: ISM Manufacturing Index for April. The consensus is for the ISM to be at 58.7, down from 59.3 in March.

Here is a long term graph of the ISM manufacturing index.

The PMI was at 59.3% in March, the employment index was at 57.3%, and the new orders index was at 61.9%.

10:00 AM: Construction Spending for March. The consensus is for a 0.5% increase in construction spending.

All day: Light vehicle sales for April. The consensus is for light vehicle sales to be 17.2 million SAAR in March, down from 17.4 million in March (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate).

This graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. The dashed line is the March sales rate.

----- Wednesday, May 2nd -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

8:15 AM: The ADP Employment Report for April. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for 193,000 payroll jobs added in April, down from 241,000 added in March.

2:00 PM: FOMC Meeting Announcement. The FOMC is expected to announce no change to policy at this meeting.

----- Thursday, May 3rd -----
8:30 AM ET: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for 220 thousand initial claims, up from 209 thousand the previous week.

8:30 AM: Trade Balance report for March from the Census Bureau.

This graph shows the U.S. trade deficit, with and without petroleum, through February. The blue line is the total deficit, and the black line is the petroleum deficit, and the red line is the trade deficit ex-petroleum products.

The consensus is for the U.S. trade deficit to be at $50.0 billion in March from $57.6 billion in February.

10:00 AM: the ISM non-Manufacturing Index for April. The consensus is for index to decrease to 58.5 from 58.8 in March.

----- Friday, May 4th -----
8:30 AM: Employment Report for April. The consensus is for an increase of 190,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in April, up from the 103,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in March.

The consensus is for the unemployment rate to decrease to 4.0%.

This graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.

In March the year-over-year change was 2.261 million jobs.

A key will be the change in wages.