Jonathan Moules Published August 23 2026 Jump to comments section Print this page This article is an on-site version of our The Week Ahead newsletter. Subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Sunday. Explore all of our newsletters here Hello and welcome to the working week.

Not only has this summer in the northern hemisphere been busier than usual for corporate and political news, but items that would barely register in the diary have taken on greater significance. A classic example of this will come on Monday with Ukrainian Independence Day. This celebration of cessation from the Soviet Union in 1991 has found renewed significance since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

But President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to mark the occasion will come with the understanding that he is fighting for his political future amid corruption allegations against top allies. Sticking with the subject of political battles, Iceland will on Saturday hold a referendum on restarting membership negotiations with the EU. Foreign minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir has drawn up some red lines, including (unsurprisingly) a demand for fishing controls.

The vote is on a knife edge. US Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh will be in the spotlight as he gives a keynote address on Friday at the central bank’s annual gathering of grey suits in Jackson Hole this week. His comments will be important given that the Federal Open Market Committee faces what could be a pivotal September rate-setting meeting.

The symposium in the wilds of Wyoming will draw together an international group of economists and monetary policymakers. The earnings calendar is fairly thin this week but by no means empty. The plastic brick powerhouse that is Lego reports interim numbers on Tuesday, expected once again to buck the downcast mood among toymakers with positive figures.

But this is merely a warm-up act to AI golden boy Nvidia a day later. The world’s biggest chipmaker has given a strong earnings outlook, raising analyst expectations for when the company reports after the closing bell in New York. The question, as with all tech stocks in the AI era, is as follows: will very good be good enough for shareholders? Inflation is again the main theme of the economic data run, with updates for Japan, Australia and the US, through the personal income, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) report on Wednesday.

There will also be consumer confidence reports for the US and Germany. More details below. One more thing . . .

Thank you for the many summer holiday book recommendations for my family break in Devon. Looking at the weather forecast, we will be spending a lot of time indoors, so I have stocked up on reading materials. In the meantime, I will leave you in the capable hands of my colleague Harvey Nriapia and see you in September.

Have a good week.