The most closely-watched data out this week would be Friday's ANZ business survey, BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert said yesterday.
Confidence in the March index sagged further to a bare 3.2, but its own-activity expectations were robust at 29.4.
‘‘It will be interesting to see how its inflation gauges are going in April. All up, we wouldn't be surprised to see a slight firming in Friday's ANZ survey,'' he said.
March building consents would also be out on Friday. In February, new dwelling numbers rebounded 10.8%, but it was hard to know what they would be for March.
‘‘We would certainly like to see a better result from non-residential consents in March, given their recent deceleration. Just bear in mind the early Easter this year will chop out processing days from the month.''
Apart from the Reserve Bank announcement tomorrow, Mr Ebert said there was plenty of New Zealand data to contemplate this week.
In figures due today, merchandise exports were overdue for a big correction after being flattered in February by timing issues as well as the export of Alice, the giant drilling machine. The BNZ anticipated a 15% fall in March's exports compared to a year ago.
The market was looking for a fall of just 4%.
‘‘Our bearish view reflects not only overall weakness in commodity export prices but air pockets in dairy and meat export volumes as recent production declines come home to roost.''
For merchandise imports, a flat result was expected. The net result would be a March deficit of $75 million compared to market expectations of a $401 million surplus, he said.
With signs of more borrowing in the household sector, close attention would be paid to today's new residential lending data. Those would be a pointer to the household debt stock figures due on Friday.
They were expected to keep an annual pace of near 7.6% -quite strong, Mr Ebert said.
‘‘We'll look to slower growth in agriculture credit but with ongoing robust expansion in business sector credit.''
In the United States, first-quarter economic activity as measured by gross domestic product would be released tomorrow.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Peter McIntyre said market forecasts suggested annualised GDP of just 0.7% for the first three months of the year, well down on the 1.4% in the three months ending December.
The Atlanta Federal Reserve's ‘‘GDP Now'' model was predicting an even weaker outcome of 0.3%. On a brighter note, for the past two years, there had been a low outcome for both the March 2014 and 2015 quarters and in both cases, the rest of the year turned out ‘‘reasonably robust'', he said.
The US reporting season continued this week when close to 200 Standard & Poors 500 companies were scheduled to report.
