US senate vote and Canadian GDP in focus – BBH

Analysts at BBH suggest that the North American session will be peppered with data and the Senate vote, if it is held, will likely be well after European markets close.  

Key Quotes

“The US sees the manufacturing PMI and ISM, construction spending and auto sales.  The PMI and ISM pose headline risk, but the more important number of economists will be the auto sales.  The recovery from the storm helps lift auto sales in September to a nearly 18.5 mln unit pace.  It eased back to 18.0 mln in October and likely corrected further in November.  The average monthly pace this year has been 17.08 mln compared with 17.44 mln last year.  Before the storms, that is through August; the average annual pace was 16.8 mln.  The Bloomberg consensus is for a 17.5 mln unit pace in November.  The risk seems to be on the downside.”  

“Canada reports September monthly GDP and Q3 GDP.  After several quarters of strong growth, the Canadian economy hit a wall in the same quarter that the central bank raised rates twice.  After an annualized growth pace of 4.5% in Q2, the Canadian economy is expected to have slowed to a 1.6% pace.  Canada also reports November employment data.  Job growth is expected to have slowed to 10k from 35k in October and a 26.4k average monthly gain this year.  Last year, Canada created about 19.1k jobs on average a month.”