Updated Friday 29 August 2026. This page is refreshed every week with the events that will actually move markets, and why. Live prices are on the dashboard; the full data calendar is here.
One number owns this week. After hot July PCE and Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole warning pushed September hike odds to a coin toss, Friday’s August payrolls report is the first of two data points that will decide the 16 September FOMC. July printed the first monthly jobs decline in 53 months; a second negative reading would collide head-on with the hike case the new chair just made, while a rebound clears the runway. Around that single event: a UK bank holiday Monday, the month-end books closing on an August that packed five stories into one week, and the last stragglers of an earnings season Nvidia just concluded emphatically.
The week at a glance
| Day | Key events (UK time) |
|---|---|
| Mon 31 Aug | UK bank holiday, London markets closed. US trades normally; month-end rebalancing flows |
| Tue 1 Sep | US ISM manufacturing 3:00pm; final manufacturing PMIs worldwide. Eurozone flash CPI for August |
| Wed 2 Sep | US JOLTS job openings; ADP private payrolls, the appetiser for Friday |
| Thu 3 Sep | US jobless claims 1:30pm; ISM services 3:00pm. Late-season earnings expected, including Broadcom’s AI read (date per company confirmation) |
| Fri 4 Sep | US August employment report 1:30pm, the decisive input before the 16 September FOMC. University of Michigan sentiment 3:00pm |
Payrolls: the collision test
Friday’s report is set up as cleanly as macro ever gets. The inflation side of the mandate now argues for tightening: core PCE has been parked at 3.3 per cent for months, and the chair told Jackson Hole plainly that without clear progress “we have work to do”. The employment side argues the opposite: July’s 23,000 decline was the first in more than four years, retail sales fell the same month, and a labour market rolling over is the one thing that reliably stays a hiking hand. A firm August print, anything comfortably positive with steady unemployment, likely takes the market’s 46 per cent September hike odds above even money. A second consecutive negative print forces the committee to choose between its inflation credibility and its employment mandate in the most public way possible. Watch revisions as closely as the headline; July’s story was rewritten by 103,000 of them.
The surveys: growth check before the growth number
Tuesday’s ISM manufacturing and Thursday’s ISM services bracket the week’s employment data with a read on activity. Manufacturing has spent most of 2026 in contraction while services carried the economy; any convergence, services softening toward the factory sector rather than the reverse, would sharpen the slowdown narrative into Friday. The prices-paid components matter almost as much as the headlines this month: they are the earliest place the food and freight cost pressures building in commodity markets and the tariff pass-through would show up.
Earnings: the season’s last word on AI
The season effectively ended with Nvidia’s $96 billion quarter, the first print in a year the market bought rather than sold, and its guided margin dip has already moved the debate to who pays for dearer memory. What remains is the tail: Broadcom’s results, expected late this week, are the season’s final large-cap AI datapoint, read closely for custom accelerator momentum against Nvidia’s newly extended lead, and the retail stragglers give one more look at a consumer whose August evidence was distorted by tariff refunds. Confirm dates before trading around them; late-season calendars shift.
Also on the radar
Three dated catalysts sit just beyond the week. Tuesday 8 September is the wind-down deadline for general licences under the new US sanctions on Iran, the first hard test of whether “economic D-Day” is enforced as written. Wednesday 9 September brings the Treasury’s first upsized buyback operation in the long end, the official response to August’s global bond selloff. And Monday 7 September is the US Labor Day holiday, compressing next week’s trading. In commodities, watch whether Black Sea grain exports show any restart, wheat enters the week at two-year highs, and whether gold’s run at $4,700 survives a hawkish payrolls print. In deals, PayPal trades its first full week with no bid support; stake disclosures will show who was positioned for the buyout that died.
What we are watching
1. Whether August payrolls push September hike odds through 50 per cent or bury them. 2. Whether the ISM prices-paid components show the grain and tariff cost pressures arriving. 3. Whether gold holds near $4,700 into a data week that could reprice the Fed again.
The deepest analysis of whatever moves most will appear in the analysis archive during the week, and the biggest piece goes to subscribers by email. Event times are UK time and can shift; the live calendar always has the latest. Nothing on this page is investment advice.