What are the key economic events for the week starting February 8, 2016

    Fed Chair Yellen Testifies, Wednesday at 10 AM ET/1500 GMT

The Chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen will testify on the semiannual monetary policy report before the House financial services committee in Washington. The Fed kept rates unchanged at their January meeting. The next meeting statement and press conference will be on March 16th. The Fed started the liftoff of rates at the December meeting and projected that there would be 4 tightenings in 2016. They also said that the trajectory of rate increases would be gradual. If the Fed is to get 4-tightenings in, that would imply one ever other meeting. March would be the “other” meeting. The market will be listening closely for clues for the Fed chairs rate view. PS Yellen will also repeat her comments on Thursday in front of the Senate.

US Retail Sales, Friday at 8:30 AM ET/1330 GMT. The advance retail sales report for the month of January will be released on Friday with expectations for a 0.1% increase vs. minuses 0.1% in December. Ex auto and gas the gain is expected to come in at close 0.3% vs. 0.0% last month. Finally, the control group is also expected to rise by 0.3% vs. -0.3% in December.

Germany?E preliminary GDP, Friday at 2 AM ET/0700 GMT. German preliminary GDP for the 4th quarter is expected to show a 0.3% quarter on quarter gain. Year on year is expected to come in at 1.4% vs. 1.7% in the 3rd quarter.

UK manufacturing production, Wednesday at 4:30 AM ET/0930 GMT. UK manufacturing production for the month of December will be released with expectations of 0.1% month on month vs. -0.4%. The year on year is expected to fall by -1.4% vs. -1.2% last

RBA Governor Stevens Testifies, Thursday at 5:30 PM ET, 2230 GMT. Reserve bank of Australia’s Stevens is to testify before the House representatives standing committee on economics in Sydney.