Asian Economic Calendar: Key Events and Consensus Expectations for 01 February 2024

<p>Y'all finished with playing the headline ping pong on the FOMC and Mr. P? </p><ul><li>"We're gonna cut, but not yet, so just calm down!" is the central message.</li></ul><p>OK then. Over to Asia for some continuation. After this lead-in from Wall Street China is going to have a shocker on the stock markets. </p><p>Speaking of China, the Caixin / S&amp;P Global Manufacturing PMI for January is the data pint highlight today. </p><p>Yesterday we had the official PMIs, a little improvement but not enough to drag manufacturing out of persistent contraction:</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.forexlive.com/news/china-january-manufacturing-pmi-492-vs-492-expected-services-507-expected-506-20240131/" target="_blank" rel="follow" data-article-link="true">China January Manufacturing PMI 49.2 (vs. 49.2 expected) Services 50.7 (expected 50.6)</a></li></ul><p>China has two primary Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) surveys – the official PMI released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Caixin China PMI published by the media company Caixin and research firm Markit / S&amp;P Global.</p><ul><li>The official PMI survey covers large and state-owned companies, while the Caixin PMI survey covers small and medium-sized enterprises. As a result, the Caixin PMI is considered to be a more reliable indicator of the performance of China's private sector.</li><li>Another difference between the two surveys is their methodology. The Caixin PMI survey uses a broader sample of companies than the official survey.</li><li>Despite these differences, the two surveys often provide similar readings on China's manufacturing sector.</li></ul><p>Today's is expected to dip a little from December but remain firmly in expansion.</p><p>Also on the calendar is the National Australia Bank business survey in Australia. NAB conducts both a monthly business survey and a quarterly survey. This is the quarterly report due today, not the monthly. It's the monthly that grabs more attention:</p><ul><li>both surveys aim to provide insights into the state of the economy and the performance of businesses</li></ul><p>There are some key differences between the two, apart from the obvious (frequency of data collection and timeliness of release) a key difference is scope of coverage:</p><ul><li>The monthly business survey is focused on providing a timely snapshot of the business environment in Australia. It covers a wide range of sectors and provides data on business conditions, business confidence, sales, profits, employment, and other key indicators.</li><li>The quarterly survey is more in-depth. It includes more detailed questions on specific topics such as investment intentions, borrowing, and exports.</li><li>The quarterly survey has a larger sample size.</li></ul><p>While both surveys provide valuable insights into the current state of the economy, the quarterly survey is better suited for identifying longer-term trends. This is because it includes more detailed questions on investment intentions and other forward-looking indicators that can provide insights into future economic activity.</p><ul><li>This snapshot from the ForexLive economic data calendar, <a href="https://www.forexlive.com/EconomicCalendar" target="_blank" title="Click here!">access it here</a>.</li><li>The times in the left-most column are GMT.</li><li>The numbers in the right-most column are the 'prior' (previous month/quarter as the case may be) result. The number in the column next to that, where there is a number, is the consensus median expected.</li></ul>

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.