The Week Ahead: June 27-July 2, 2016

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In Washington, the House left town last week, adjourning early in a bid to block Democrats’ demands for votes on gun legislation, and will be in recess this week. The Senate is in and has hearings on tap on health care issues, the Zika virus and on education. The watch will also be on whether the Senate opts to take up the GMO labeling plan that was agreed to June 23 by leaders of the Senate Ag Committee.

‘Brexit’ will remain a focus as the week arrives, but there will be other economic developments that should muscle their way back to being a focus for markets. Monday brings the International Trade in Goods, PMI Services and the Dallas Fed manufacturing reports. The final update on the first quarter US economic performance arrives via GDP data, followed by the S&P Case-Shiller House Price Index, Consumer Confidence and the Richmond Fed manufacturing index. The only Wednesday release is the Pending Home Sales Index, with updates Thursday due on weekly jobless claims and Chicago PMI. The week closes out with the PMI and ISM manufacturing updates and Construction Spending. The July 4 holiday falls on the following Monday which will not mean any trading shifts to close out the week except for the bond market which will close early Friday, July 1. The Brexit situation will continue to be assessed and analyzed, but it’s clear that some of the impacts may not become apparent for several days, weeks, months or more.

A Wednesday session of central bankers became a lot more interesting with the Brexit vote. That session at a European Central Bank (ECB) banking conference in Portugal is supposed to feature Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen, Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney, ECB President Mario Draghi and Brazil Central Bank Gov. Alexandre Tombini. That has the potential to be a setting for some interesting comments in the wake of the British vote. Other US Fed officials on tap next week included St Louis Fed’s Bullard on Thursday and Cleveland Fed’s Mester on Friday, both of them 2017 voters. How they assess Brexit could also be a focus in their remarks or in questions.

Big focus for agriculture will be Thursday, the final day of June. That’s when USDA releases the Weekly Export Sales report, but the major attention will be in the Grain Stocks and Acreage reports due out at 11 a.m. CT. The expectation is for fewer corn acres and more soybean acres versus what farmers told USDA in March. Those reports should reassert control over grain and soybean markets as the weekly closes out and we head into July. Other releases include Monday’s Crop Progress update, monthly Ag Prices data Wednesday and the week wraps up with the industrial reports now published by USDA on fats and oils crushing, grain crushing and cotton utilization. Weather should also return as a factor, provided outside markets like currencies calm.

NOTE: This column is copyrighted material; therefore reproduction or retransmission is prohibited under U.S. copyright laws.