What are the main events for today?

The European session is empty in terms of data releases as we will just get a couple of low tier indicators. In the American session, we get the US Retail Sales report and the US NAHB Housing Market Index.

12:30 GMT/08:30 ET - US February Retail Sales

The US Retail Sales M/M is expected at 0.6% vs. -0.9% prior, while the ex-Autos figure is seen at 0.4% vs. -0.4% prior. The focus will be on the Control Group figure which is expected at 0.2% vs. -0.8% prior.

Consumer spending has been stable in the past months which is something you would expect given the positive real wage growth and resilient labour market. More recently though, we’ve been seeing some marked easing in consumer sentiment due to the ongoing trade wars and tariffs uncertainty which is likely to weigh on spending.