SHANGHAI, Jul 30 (SMM) – This is a roundup of global macroeconomic news last weekend and what is expected today.

Last weekend

The dollar index slipped and closed at 94.66 last Friday as strong US economic growth in the second quarter failed to ease worries that trade frictions would be a drag in the second half of 2018.

Most LME metals fell last Friday. Lead led the decreases with a loss of 1.6%, aluminium fell 0.73%, copper slid 0.6%, zinc edged down and nickel closed flat while tin edged up. SHFE metals, except for lead and copper, rose last Friday night.

Profits at China’s industrial companies in June rose 20% from a year earlier, slightly retreating from the 21.1% gain in May, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday.

Industrial profits grew 17.2% from the same period last year during the January-June period, up from the 16.5% expansion for the January-May period.

The NBS attributed the growth in the first half of this year to the country's supply-side reforms, which helped reduce production costs and lower debt levels.

These companies also posted stronger profit earning capabilities and saw faster inventory turnover of their products.

The year-on-year profit growth during January-June was mainly contributed by increases in the petroleum and natural gas mining, ferrous metal metallurgy and rolling, and chemical sectors.

US gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a solid 4.1% pace in the second quarter, its highest level since 2014. It was boosted by rise in consumer and business spending as well as increase in government outlays, the Commerce Department said last Friday. The first-quarter reading was revised up from 2% to 2.2%.

Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) beat the expectations and rose 4% during the April-June period while business investment grew 7.3% and federal government spending increased by 3.5%.

US consumer sentiment eased to 97.9 in July from 98.2 in June, the University of Michigan said last Friday. The decline was resulted from fears over the impact of tariffs on the domestic economy.

Day ahead

Key things to watch today will be a deluge of eurozone sentiment indicators covering services, business, industrial confidence, consumer confidence and economic sentiment. Besides, Germany will unveil the latest consumer inflation report for July and the US will release pending home sales for July.