South Africa
?South Africa's Bureau for Economic Research (BER) at the University of Stellenbosch will release this month's PMI on Monday. This closely followed indicator for the continent's largest economy, closely followed forward-looking crossed the key 50-mark separating contraction from expansion in April. Markets will be watching to see if the index held its ground in May.
On Tuesday, the BER will release its business confidence index for the second quarter and the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa will report May's vehicle sales data.
The releases will come on the back of announcements made by President Jacob Zuma last week about the falling rand.
Africa
Elsewhere on the continent, the Bank of Uganda will auction 160-billion shillings of three- and five-year treasury bonds and announce its latest interest rates decision on Wednesday.
Citing upside risks to inflation, policymakers left the bank's benchmark rate on hold at 12.0% for the fifth straight month in May. Figures released on Friday showed that Uganda's year-on-year consumer price inflation rate showed a slight increase last month, rising to 3.6% in May from 3.4% in April. Core inflation rose to 5.6%, remaining above the central bank's 5% medium-term target.
Stronger domestic demand, coupled with potential food supply constraints, may increase inflation risks in the near-term. As a result, economists expect policymakers to remain vigilant this month and again leave rates unchanged.
The Bank of Uganda is also expected to release April's M3 money supply data – the broadest measure of money – sometime this week. Money supply rose 11.63% in March from a year earlier, down from a 16.56% expansion in February.
United States
The big event on the US data calendar is Friday's employment situation report. Markets expect the monthly jobs report to show that companies in the world's largest economy added 165 000 positions in May, the same amount that they added in April. The country's unemployment rate is expected to remain flat at 7.5%.
America's job figures are always closely followed by economists and investors, but are under increased scrutiny since Federal Reserve chairperson Ben Bernanke said last month that an improving economic picture could prompt the central bank to begin tapering its $85-billion a month asset purchase programme. Many analysts believe that this aggressive stimulus policy is behind the record performance of equity markets this year.
As markets wait for Friday's big figure, they will have plenty of other data to mull over.
On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management will release its latest manufacturing index. Consensus is that this forward-looking indicator of economic activity edged up to 51 in May from 50.7 in April. Any mark above 50 indicates expansion.
On Tuesday, motor vehicle sales numbers are expected to show an increase. Markets expect the data release to show that sales rose to an annualised pace of 15.2-million units in May from 14.9-million in April.
On Wednesday, markets will get a preview of Friday's job numbers in the form of Automatic Data Processing's (ADP) national employment report. Analysts are predicting that ADP's estimate of private payrolls rose to 165 000 in May from 119 000 in April.
Europe
On Monday, economists and investors will get a series of economic snapshots from across the continent. Manufacturing purchasing managers' indices (PMIs) in Germany and France – Europe's two largest economies, respectively – and for the 17-member eurozone are all expected to remain below the 50-mark separating expansion from contraction.
Later in the week, Europe's two most powerful central banks – the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of England (BOE) – will both meet on Thursday. With Europe's rate of contraction showing signs of slowing, markets expect policymakers at the ECB to sit on their hands.
"The economic situation in the euro area remains challenging, but there are a few signs of a possible stabilisation, and our baseline scenario continues to be one of a very gradual recovery starting in the latter part of this year," ECB chief Mario Draghi said in a speech to the International Monetary Conference in Shanghai this weekend.
BOE is not expected to make changes to interest rates or the size of its asset purchase programme at this week's meeting either, the last at which Governor Mervyn King will preside. King will be replaced by Mark Carney, the highly regarded former governor of the Bank of Canada who many believe will act aggressively to jump-start Britain's lacklustre economy.
Asia
The Reserve Bank of Australia will announce its June rates decision on Tuesday. Policymakers are widely expected to leave the bank's benchmark rate on hold at 2.75% this month after surprising markets with a 25-basis point cut in May.
Since the May 7 meeting, Australia's dollar has weakened by roughly 6% against the US dollar. The effect of this currency depreciation is a boost of around 0.1% to the country's gross domestic product – approximately the same as the estimated contribution to growth generated by a quarter-point rate cut – reducing the need for action by the central bank.
On Friday, global markets will shift their attention to Malaysia and Taiwan's latest trade figures. Economists expect that both sets of figures will provide further evidence that Asia's long hoped for export recovery has yet to materialise.
Analysts at 4CAST expect Malaysia's data to show that exports grew by a paltry 0.5% from a year earlier in May. Taiwan's exports are likely to have dropped 0.8% from a year earlier last month.
Finally, also on Friday, China's President Xi Jinping will head to the United States for a summit with US President Barack Obama. The leaders of the world's two biggest economies will meet in California on Friday for two-days of talks, the first time the two have been face to face since Xi took office in March.