Week of August 17 - August 21, 2026
FOMC minutes, UK CPI, and Friday flash PMIs headline a retail-earnings week.
Read full briefing▾
The week after July CPI printed exactly on consensus and retail sales slumped 0.6% is about reading the July 29 FOMC minutes against a consumer that just cracked. Three regional presidents -- Hammack, Kashkari, and Logan -- dissented for a 25bp hike at that meeting, the first three-way hawkish split since 2016, while Chair Warsh left the funds rate at 3.50-3.75% and offered no forward guidance. Wednesday's minutes at 18:00 UTC will show how far that hawkish sympathy ran beyond the three named votes; markets currently price only about a one-third chance of a September hike after the -23K payrolls print and the soft inflation sequence. The data flow around those minutes is heavy: China activity and Canadian CPI on Monday, the UK labour report Tuesday, UK CPI Wednesday (expected to rebound to 2.9% on the Ofgem cap), the PBoC LPR hold and Australian jobs Thursday, then Friday's global flash PMIs. Retail earnings -- Home Depot Tuesday, Target and Lowe's Wednesday, Walmart Thursday -- are the consumer cross-check after Friday's sales miss. Jackson Hole opens the following Thursday, so this week's tape is the last clean data window before Chair Warsh's first symposium speech.
This calendar is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Event times, forecasts, and analysis are based on publicly available data and may change. Always verify with official sources before making trading decisions.