Money Minute Monday 6 January: the week ahead

Today we take a look ahead to this week's biggest financial stories.

The biggest economic news release of the week is the all-important US non-farm payrolls report, which comes out on Friday.This will show the number of new jobs that were added to employer payrolls across America in December.It also shows the US unemployment rate, and the pace of wage growth.

Employment data has been consistently strong in the US over the last year or so.Wage growth however has been modest, allowing the US central bank to take a relaxed view on inflationary pressures.A weaker-than-expected jobs report would likely be viewed as bad news by investors.

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In the UK this week, meanwhile, we get a snapshot of what's been going on in the housing market.This is likely to confirm that house prices were broadly flat for most of 2019.Ideally this would continue into 2020, although a post-election bounce cannot be ruled out.