A risk on Asian session following on from yesterday's strong gains on Wall Street.

At 06.45BST

ASX +0.35%
Nikkei +1.4%
KOSPI +1.5%

Guess what?

Equities look like they're heading higher again today;

In the news overnight,

Nothing really to write home about.

Progress, but still lagging behind targets.  

On the calendar (BST)

None of the current data really helps develop a longer term view, so any reactions to these data points are usually short-lived.

At 7AM, we have the final reading for Germany's Q2 GDP.

Contain your excitement.  

Expectations are for a 10.1% fall vs Q1 (in line with the flash figures already released last month).

It really shouldn't matter, but worth paying attention to.    

We also see the lfo survey results.

Here's a preview from Livesquawk

Disappointment on this could dampen the "European Out-performance" spirits, possibly put a cap on European equities, especially after a Monster Monday return.

At 11AM, a little more colour on the UK retail picture with the August CBI reading.

Last month's reading came in at 4, and consensus is for an improvement to 8.

Trading Economics are forecasting this to rise to 11.

It isn't a well-known data point so I double-checked how it's calculated.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Distributive Trades Survey (DTS) measures the health of the retail sector. The reading is compiled from a survey of about 150 retail and wholesale companies. It includes measures of sales activity across the distributive trades. It is a leading indicator of consumer spending. The figure is the difference between the percentage of retailers reporting an increase in sales and those reporting a decrease.

It's a sentiment game, and a decent beat could see a pop in GBP.

Higher frequency indicators are certainly pointing towards a positive outcome.  

For the U.S. session, we have U.S. redbook (in person, offline) retail sales for the past week to start things off.

Housing data up next, with the Case-Shiller index for June, and New home Sales for July.

August consumer confidence will be closely watched, but shouldn't be drastically market-moving.

We close out the session with a couple of Central Bankers sharing their words of wisdom.

Fed's Daly will moderate a panel on "Under the Magnifying Glass: Inequity and COVID-19" at the Rotary Club of Oakland.

BoC's Schembri will give a speech titled: Understanding the gap: the difference between perceived and measured inflation.

I'm very excited for that one.

We close out Tuesday's calendar with a survey of business confidence in S.Korea, and NZ trade data for July.