Week ahead: UK CPI GDP jobs & retail sales, Japan GDP and Australia confidence

In a week when many Chinese markets are out for the celebration of the year of the dragon, earnings begin to tail off from the recent flurry. There are still some areas of interest as UK banks begin to surface, beginning with NatWest on Friday. This will be followed by HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds Banking the following week. In the US there are still some all-sessions stocks to watch including Q4 earnings from Coca-Cola, AirBnB and Lyft, interestingly, all on Tuesday. Economic data from both the consumer and business on confidence, could provide some further downside for the beleaguered Australian dollar. In the UK, by the end of the week we’ll have a pretty good idea if the Bank of England will cut rates at its next meeting on 21 March. There’s jobs data, consumer prices, producer prices, retail prices, GDP and retail sales. Retail sales also appears in the US along with Q4 GDP.