Economy

68 of 72 economists polled by Reuters expect the Reserve Bank of India to leave its repo rate unchanged at 5.25 percent on Wednesday, with analysts focused on whether the MPC will revise its FY27 CPI projection above the June forecast of 5.1 percent. June CPI came in at 4.38 percent against a 4 percent target, kharif sowing is running 4.7 percent below 2025 levels, and crude oil stood at $90.04 per barrel on July 30, all of which feed into the inflation and growth outlook the committee must address. The statement's stance language, any break from June's unanimous vote, and Governor Malhotra's guidance on the rate path through FY27 are the specific details markets are watching.

China's central bank held its H2 work meeting on August 1 and reissued its moderately loose monetary policy stance, naming LGFV debt support and panda-bond facilitation as priorities but announcing no new rates, facilities, or operational details. Q2 GDP growth slowed to 4.3%, falling below the lower bound of the 4.5–5.0% annual target range, though H1 growth of 4.7% means a full-year miss is not yet confirmed. The meeting's output is a reaffirmation of existing posture rather than a policy shift, leaving the scale and mechanics of promised support unspecified.

Two official measures of Chinese factory activity pointed in opposite directions in July 2026: the RatingDog private survey held in expansion for an eighth consecutive month at 50.9, while the NBS official gauge fell to 49.2, its first contraction since February, with all five component indices below 50. The divergence extended to export orders, where the private survey recorded a return to expansion while the NBS reported export orders at a contractionary 49.6. The readings arrived one day after China's Politburo outlined plans for more proactive fiscal policy and accommodative monetary policy in the second half of 2026.

The U.S. Census Bureau will publish June 2026 construction spending figures today at 10:00 a.m. EDT, with May's most recent total standing at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,210.2 billion. The release matters because the BEA's July 30 advance GDP estimate, which placed second-quarter growth at 1.5 percent, used a projected rather than actual June construction figure. Today's data will allow a direct comparison between the Census observation and the BEA's assumption, potentially informing revisions to the GDP estimate.

The full U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services report for June 2026 publishes August 4, adding services data and country and commodity detail absent from the July 28 advance estimate, which showed a $101.5 billion goods-only deficit. The complete report will also provide revised May figures and establish the goods-deficit and services-surplus split for June. Those figures arrive ahead of the August 26 second estimate for Q2 2026 GDP, where net exports factor directly into the calculation.