Kiplinger's Economic Calendar for This Week (April 14-April 18)

The economic calendar is relatively light this week, featuring speeches and appearances by just four Federal Reserve officials. The health of the U.S. consumer and the trajectory of retail sales is always a focus, though. And markets will be especially interested in initial claims for unemployment insurance for signs of businesses cutting back.

Wednesday, April 16: Retail sales: Investors, traders and speculators will assess the health of the U.S. consumer at a critical moment for global markets and the broader economy.

Thursday, April 17: Weekly jobless claims: Ordinarily, this is not an attention-getting indicator. It can be noisy from week to week. This is no ordinary time, however, and observers are keen for any evidence of the real-world impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs.

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You can read on to see the entire weekly economic calendar of the most important upcoming economic reports scheduled to be released over the next several days. At times, we provide expanded previews and recaps for select reports.

Please check back often. This economic calendar is updated regularly.

Bolded reports are those considered more noteworthy. All reporting times are in Eastern Standard Time.

Economic calendar highlights

Monday (4/14)

Tuesday (4/15)

Wednesday (4/16)

Is the consumer consuming?

The Census Bureau is scheduled to release retail sales data for March before the opening bell on Wednesday.

"The US consumer was already showing clear signs of fatigue," writes UBS Chief Strategist Bhanu Baweja. "The soft data has been worsening considerably as the fiscal impulse and immigration, two big supports to growth in the last 3-4 years, have both faded."

Baweja explains that "even without tariffs, the U.S. economy was due to go from exceptional to trend this year," which "wasn't at all priced in earnings."

According to Baweja's count, the risk now is that earnings growth declines from an expectation of 13% at the beginning of the year "much lower than" the 6% to 7% growth "we thought they would stabilize at."

Consumption represents 60% to 70% of U.S. GDP, and policymakers and economists as well as investors, traders and speculators will eye the March retail sales numbers with particular interest given recent macro uncertainty.

Thursday (4/17)

How's the jobless claims trend?

Following a solid jobs report for March, investors, traders and speculators will look hard when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports initial jobless claims for the week ending April 12 ahead of the opening bell on Thursday.

The BLS reported initial claims of 223,000 for the week ending April 5.

The four-week moving average was unchanged at 223,000. Initial claims filed by federal workers declined by 56 to 508 vs a peak of 1,634 in February.

Continuing claims declined by 43,000 in the week ended March 29 after rising 46,000 in the prior week and were below consensus expectations.

Friday (4/18)

Reporting schedules are provided Forex Factory and MarketWatch.

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