Another Trump court date, US GDP update and pioneering moonshot

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Hello and welcome to the working week.

It’s fair to feel a degree of déjà vu about the next few days. Firstly, another Trump court date. The former president was scheduled to appear before US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in the case in which he is charged for an alleged attempt to overturn 2020 election. But this time he has the option not to appear in person.

Then there is another moonshot. Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is a lunar probe that the country’s space agency hopes to land on a small crater in Mare Nectaris, close to the Moon’s equator on the side facing Earth. This would make Japan the fifth nation to land on the Moon, following India’s successful touch down last week. Launch is set for early Monday morning GMT.

The main economic update for the week will be the US GDP and employment figures on Wednesday and Friday, respectively, together giving further food for thought on the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening programme.

Mattel has been enjoying a bumper summer on the back of Barbenheimer movie mania driving interest in its famous female doll. But what about other toymakers? This week we’ll see if privately held Lego, the world’s largest toymaker, has been able to maintain its extraordinary run of success — despite Barbie hogging the headlines — when it reports its latest profit and revenue figures.

In other corporate news, Apple will be contesting a $2bn mass lawsuit at London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal on Tuesday in which the tech company is accused of hiding defective batteries in millions of iPhones by “throttling” them with software updates. The case has been brought by consumer champion Justin Gutmann on behalf of iPhone users in the UK. Apple said in written arguments that the lawsuit is “baseless” and strongly denies its iPhones’ batteries were defective, apart from in a small number of iPhone 6s models for which it offered free battery replacements.

Elsewhere in politics, US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo has begun a four-day visit to Beijing and Shanghai to meet senior Chinese officials and US business leaders during the first part of this week.

Singapore on Friday will elect a new president. Though the role is largely ceremonial, the vote will be seen as a referendum on the People’s Action party that has ruled the island nation for more than six decades but whose reputation for stability has been shaken by a series of recent scandals.

Finally, I’d like to thank David Hindley for expertly steering the Week Ahead guide for the last fortnight. The Moules family Grand Tour on European railways was a success, and you will be able to read the details soon in the Financial Times’ travel section.

One more thing . . . 

The FTWeekend festival returns this Saturday to Kenwood House in London, hosting hundreds of speakers from Succession creator and screenwriter Jesse Armstrong to chef Margot Henderson and historian Simon Schama. Stephen Bush, Lucy Fisher and Miranda Green from our UK politics team will present a live recording of their Political Fix podcast with guest Michael Gove. As a loyal Week Ahead reader, you can get £20 off an in-person festival pass using promo code FTWFxNewsletters.

Key economic and company reports

Here is a more complete list of what to expect in terms of company reports and economic data this week.

Monday

• Germany: monthly import prices data

• UK: summer bank holiday, excluding Scotland. London markets closed.

• Results: BYD Q2

Tuesday

• UK Competition Appeal Tribunal holds a disclosure hearing for a case accusing Apple of concealing poor iPhone performance.

• Germany: GfK Consumer Climate survey

• UK: British Retail Consortium’s August Shop Price index

• US: Conference Board Consumer Confidence data

• Results: Bunzl H1, NN Group H1

Wednesday

• Germany: flash August consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate figures

• US: revised Q2 GDP figures

• Results: Bertelsmann H1, Brown-Forman Q1, Lego H1, Prudential H1, Salesforce Q2

Thursday

• Bank of England chief economist Huw Pill speaks at the South African Reserve Bank Biennial Conference

• EU: European Central Bank publishes accounts of its last monetary policy discussions

• France: flash Q2 GDP and August CPI inflation rate figures

• India: Q1 GDP figures

• Results: Adevinta Q2, Broadcom Q3, Campbell Soup Q4, Dollar General Q2, Grafton H1, Lululemon Athletica Q2, Pernod Ricard FY, SAS Q3, UBS Q2

Friday

• Dirk Hahn becomes Hays chief executive, succeeding Alistair Cox

• Gerry Murphy joins Tesco as non-executive chair, succeeding John Allan, who stepped down in June

• Brazil: Q2 GDP figures

• EU, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US: S&P Global/Cips manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) figures

• UK: Nationwide House Price index

• US: employment market report

World events

Finally, here is a rundown of other events and milestones this week.

Monday

• 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington

• Japan: the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency is scheduled to launch a rocket in an attempt to become the fifth nation to successfully land on the Moon

• UK: culmination of the Notting Hill Carnival, celebrating Caribbean culture in London

• US: status conference for former president Donald Trump, charged with conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights of citizens

Tuesday

• UK: London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone is expanded across the city

• US: President Joe Biden hosts his Costa Rican counterpart Rodrigo Chaves for a bilateral meeting at the White House

Wednesday

• Spain: La Tomatina festival, the world’s largest tomato fight involving up to 20,000 revellers in Buñol, a small industrial town 40km from Valencia

Thursday

Friday

• First day of meteorological autumn in the northern hemisphere

• Singapore: presidential election takes place

• UK: Strike by train drivers in the Aslef union in their ongoing dispute over pay

• UK: Sale of fluorescent lightbulbs for household use is banned from today

Saturday

• China: International Fair for Trade in Services begins in Beijing

• UK: 24-hour strike by 20,000 RMT union members across 14 train operating companies in an ongoing dispute over working conditions, pay and job security.

  Separately, supporters of Scottish independence and EU membership will march down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh to the Holyrood parliament building

Sunday