Coming Week: Spotlight on Central Banks

Updated from 9:53 a.m. EDT

Recent signs of stability in global markets face a new set of challenges in the coming week, most notably Bank of Japan and Federal Reserve policy meetings.

In the wild-card department, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made some eye-opening comments Friday, characterizing his country's growth as "unstable, imbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable," Bloomberg reported.

The reaction to Wen's comments was notably muted Friday, which may suggest Asian markets' late-February rout was an isolated event. But similar to the time the premier's Chinese New Year holiday declaration about corruption and fraud spurred those massive losses in Shanghai, investors will have two days to mull Wen's latest comments, as detailed here.

In addition to any postmull reaction to Wen's warnings and the subsequent rate hike by the People's Bank of China Saturday, Monday is also the first day of a two-day BOJ policy meeting. Japan's central bank is largely expected to keep rates unchanged at 0.5%. But any comments about future rate hikes could revive fears of an unwinding of the yen carry trade -- or even actual unwinding of trades made by borrowing yen to finance investments in high-yielding securities around the world.

In addition to the BOJ's policy decision, Tuesday brings March housing starts data, the biggest U.S. economic event ahead of Wednesday's Fed meeting. No change in interest rates is expected, but traders will closely monitor the Federal Open Market Committee's accompanying statement, perhaps even more than normal given recent events.

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