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• US June Consumer Price Index (1230 GMT). The headline CPI index is expected to have increased by0.1% and the core price index, which excludes food and energy prices, by 0.2%.

This would leave the headline inflation year-over-year change at 1.7%, which is unchanged from the previous month. The core inflation rate would, however, fall to 1.7% from 1.9% in May.

The chart shows how inflation peaked in February and has been falling since. This will likely put the Federal Reserve into a difficult position – should it continue with rate hikes as planned, and move toward normalizing the Fed’s balance sheet.

• Support for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, battered by losses in a Tokyo assembly election and a smouldering scandal, has fallen below 30 percent, the lowest since he returned to power in 2012, according to an opinion poll released on Friday.

Support for Abe's government fell 15.2 points from a month earlier, sliding to 29.9 percent, according to a public opinion survey on July 7 to 10 by Jiji news agency.

• The U.S. State Department will require all nations to provide extensive data to help it vet visa applicants and determine whether a traveller poses a terrorist threat, according to a cable obtained by Reuters.

Countries that fail to comply with the new protocols or take steps to do so within 50 days could face travel sanctions.

• The European Central Bank is likely to signal in September that its bond-buying scheme will be gradually wound down next year and ECB chief Mario Draghi could give the next clue on the plans in late August, the Wall Street Journal said on Thursday.

• Japan's government on Friday raised its growth forecasts for private consumption, capital expenditure, and housing investment for the current fiscal year as domestic demand gathers strength.

The government left its overall forecast for gross domestic product growth unchanged in fiscal 2017, which started in April, due to an expected decline in inventories and slightly slower growth in fiscal spending.

The government also expects consumer prices to rise 1.1 percent this fiscal year and 1.3 percent in fiscal2018, highlighting a very slow build up in inflationary pressure.

• Oil markets dipped on Friday, pulled down by high fuel inventories and improving industry efficiency, but were still on track for a solid weekly gain.

Brent crude futures LCOc1, the international benchmark for oil prices, were down 7 cents, or 0.1 percent, at$48.35 per barrel at 0443 GMT (12:43 a.m. ET), but up 3.5 percent for the week.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were at $45.97 per barrel, down 11 cents, or 0.2percent, but up around 4 percent over the week.

Reference: Reuters