Biden to meet McCarthy at White House over debt ceiling crisis

Hello and welcome to the working week.

US president Joe Biden is meeting House speaker Kevin McCarthy and other top congressional leaders to address the threat of the nation defaulting on its debt. The talks at the White House on Tuesday have been called after Treasury secretary Janet Yellen warned that the government risked running out of cash as soon as 1 June.

A significant military anniversary for Russians and an important gathering of Nato military heads will ensure the war in Ukraine also remains headline news this week.

Victory Day is a big national holiday for Russians, commemorating Nazi Germany’s surrender to Soviet forces in 1945. But this year’s anniversary on Tuesday will be notable for the low-key nature of many celebrations, including the cancellation of local military parades.

The Ukraine conflict will also provide the mood music for a meeting of Nato chiefs of defence in Brussels on Wednesday. Given that we have yet to see Ukraine’s long-awaited counter-offensive, there will be little cause for celebration here either.

Media businesses dominate the earnings reports this week, in particular the quarterly results from Rupert Murdoch’s two titans of broadcasting and newspapers: Fox and News Corp. The businesses have themselves been the subject of front page headlines with the record out-of-court settlement with Dominion and concerns about whether Rupert has lost his sure touch amid a family battle for succession.

Another potentially interesting story is a midweek vote of confidence in the chair of middle-class Britain’s favourite department store John Lewis. More details about that below.

The big economic event of the week will be the Bank of England’s monthly Monetary Policy Committee meeting. It is believed that the MPC has one more quarter-point rise left in its tightening cycle, but a poll of economists by Reuters found it was too close to call whether this increase — taking the base rate to 4.5 per cent — would happen this week.

The week ends with a batch of crucial elections. The most significant, on Sunday, are Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary plebiscites, where populist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan faces his toughest re-election campaign after two decades in power. Opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is bullish, last month telling the FT he would not let the election be “stolen” by Erdoğan. FT journalists will be on the ground reporting the results as they come in.

Thank you for your comments about The Week Ahead. Keep them coming by emailing me at jonathan.moules@ft.com.

Economic data

It is not a bumper week for economic data, but there will be inflation rate updates from China, Germany and the US. Attention then returns to the UK on Friday for its first take on Q1 GDP.

Companies

It feels like we’ve passed the peak of the latest earnings season, but there are plenty of big-name companies reporting this week from a variety of sectors, including Disney, Nissan and Rolls-Royce.

Could there be a change at the top of the British middle class’s favourite department store chain? A vote of confidence in John Lewis chair Dame Sharon White will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday among the employee-owned retailer’s 74,000 staff. The plebiscite happens once a year and a vote against White would be a surprise, but this time it could be messy due to growing unrest about the retailer’s recent poor performance.

Key economic and company reports

Here is a more complete list of what to expect in terms of company reports and economic data this week.

Monday

• Germany, April industrial production figures

• UK, financial markets closed for public holiday after coronation of King Charles III

• US, the deadline for lawyers for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to file court motions in New York, formally responding to the criminal fraud charges brought against him by federal prosecutors

• Results: Marubeni FY, PayPal Q1, Six Flags Entertainment Q1, Tyson Foods Q2

Tuesday

• Australia, treasurer Jim Chalmers presents the annual federal Budget

• France, trade balance figures

• UK, Halifax House Price Index and British Retail Consortium-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor

• US, former Coinbase Global product manager Ishan Wahi due to be sentenced after pleading guilty in the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrency

• Results: Airbnb Q1, Allbirds Q1, BuzzFeed Q1, Direct Line Q1 trading update, Duke Energy Q1, Electronic Arts Q4, Fox Q3, Mitsubishi FY, Nintendo FY, Saudi Aramco Q1, Sumitomo FY, Warner Music Group Q2, Wynn Resorts Q1

Wednesday

• Google holds its annual Input/Output developer conference, featuring launches of new products and a speech from chief executive Sundar Pichai

• Stephanie Bruce, the chief financial officer of struggling fund manager Abrdn, steps down after the company’s annual general meeting today

• Germany, April consumer price index (CPI) and harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICP) inflation rate data

• UK, KPMG and Recruitment & Employment Confederation Report on Jobs

• US, April CPI inflation rate data

• Results: ABN Amro Q1, Ahold Delhaize Q1, Alstom FY, Asos H1, Compass Group H1, Continental AG Q1, Crédit Agricole Q1, Disney Q2, E.ON Q1, Ferroglobe Q1, Melrose Industries trading update, New York Times Company Q1, Nippon Steel Q4, Panasonic FY, Toyota Q4, Tui H1, Wetherspoon trading update

Thursday

• China, April CPI and producer price index (PPI) inflation rate data

• UK, Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee’s rate-setting meeting

• US, April PPI inflation rate data

• Results: 3i Group FY, Bayer Q1, Deutsche Telekom Q1, Foxconn Q1, Honda Motor FY, ING Q1, ITV Q1 trading update, News Corp Q3, Nissan Motor Q4, Pirelli Q1, Rolls-Royce AGM and trading update, RWE Q1, SoftBank FY

Friday

• The former head of Argentine sports marketing company Torneos y Competencias Alejandro Burzaco, who pleaded guilty in 2015 to racketeering and other charges as part of a sprawling corruption probe in football, is due to be sentenced at a Manhattan court

• France, April CPI and HICP inflation rate figures

• UK, flash Q1 GDP estimate

• US, University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey

• Results: Allianz Q1, Balfour Beatty AGM and trading update, Beazley Q1 trading update, Norwegian Air Q1, Richemont FY, Société Générale Q1, Tata Motors Q4, Toshiba FY

World events

Finally, here is a rundown of other events and milestones this week. 

Monday

• Korea, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida meets South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol in the first summit between the two nations in a decade

• Switzerland, WTO May General Council meeting begins in Geneva

• US, president Joe Biden is set to meet Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and House speaker Kevin McCarthy at the White House to discuss the government’s debt ceiling

Tuesday

• Indonesia, the 42nd summit for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) member states begins in Labuan Bajo

• Russia, Victory Day commemorating Nazi Germany’s formal surrender to the Soviet Union on 9 May 1945

• UK, the 1,400 security officers in the Unite union at Heathrow airport begin a 48-hour strike in an ongoing dispute about pay. Separately, Unite members at GSK’s Ware factory begin a 49-hour walk out in a national pay dispute with the pharmaceuticals company.

Wednesday

• Belgium, Nato’s chiefs of defence meet in Brussels to discuss issues of strategic importance to the military alliance, namely the Ukraine conflict.

• UK, further strike action, this time by Public and Commercial Services union members working for HMRC in Glasgow and Newcastle over pay, pensions, job security and redundancy terms. This is the first of a series of walkouts that are set to continue into June.

Thursday

Friday

• Guatemala, Ninth Summit of the heads of state of the Association of Caribbean States in Antigua

• US, president Joe Biden hosts Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez for talks at the White House

Saturday

• Portugal, Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro and his son Eduardo Bolsonaro are expected to attend a far-right summit in Lisbon

• Sweden, foreign minister Tobias Billstrom and the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy Josep Borrell will jointly host the EU Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum in Stockholm.

• UK, Liverpool will host the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, one of the world’s largest televised events, on behalf of Ukraine, which won last year.

• UK, members of the RMT rail union resume strike action across 14 train operators after rejecting the latest offer from the Rail Delivery Group

Sunday

• Albania, local elections

• Germany, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to receive Germany’s prestigious Charlemagne Prize (Karlspreis) for “defending their country’s sovereignty as well as Europe and its values”.

• Israel, 75th anniversary of the country’s declaration of independence

• Italy, first round of municipal elections

• Thailand, parliamentary elections

• Turkey, presidential and parliamentary elections

• US, Canada, Australia: Mother’s Day