The coming week will see earnings and capital spending data released in Australia, a speech by Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens, his first for 2010 and the second estimate of US 4th quarter economic growth.
First off in Australia Kerry Stokes is due to announce a new asset shuffle that will see his TV and magazines interests sold to West Australian Newspapers.
His companies, Seven Group Holdings and WAN are due to report interim profits this week, with WAN reporting today and the deal.
We also get data for construction spending (due Wednesday) and private capital spending for the December quarter (Thursday).
Both will help set up expectations for December quarter GDP data due March 2.
(The RBA board meets the day before.)
The thinking is that the capex will be strong, but construction and other measures will be weak, suggesting growth was close to break-even or perhaps negative for the quarter.
The latest labour price index and then average weekly earnings figures will be released this week.
Both are expected to see wage rises running at around 4%, boosted by solid gains in state governments.
A speech by RBA Governor Glenn Stevens on Wednesday will be watched closely for clues regarding the interest rate outlook but it’s unlikely that the message will be any different from that of the last two weeks, i.e. that the RBA retains an optimistic medium term outlook, but is happy to leave interest rates on hold for now.
In Australia, it will be the biggest week in the December half reporting season with around 90 major companies due to report including Amcor, Mirvac, Woodside, Oil Search, AGL, Coca Cola, IAG, Origin, GPT and Woolworths.
The full list for the coming week of reports included: UGL Ltd, Challenger Financial Services Group Ltd, BlueScope, OneSteel, Woodside Petroleum (full year), AMC Amcor, Caltex (full year), Flight Centre, Western Australian Newspaper Holdings, Whitehaven Coal, Mirvac, Oil Search, Australian Worldwide Exploration, GPT (full year), Sonic Healthcare, Seek, Suncorp, Coca-Cola Amatil Ltd (full year), AGL Energy, WorleyParsons, Riversdale Mining, Asciano Group, Ausenco, Boart Longyear (full year), Breville Group, Pacific Brands, Skilled Group, Virgin Blue Holdings, IAG Ltd, Origin Energy, Toll Holdings, MAp (full year), Aristocrat (full year), Downer EDI, Fairfax Media Group, Goodman Group, IOOF Holdings, Macarthur Coal, Paperlinx, Tatts Group, Woolworths, Harvey Norman, Austar United Communications, Transfield Services, Iluka Ltd and Crown Ltd.
In the US, investors will get a sense of the state of economic growth from fourth-quarter 2010 gross domestic product data on Friday.
It’s the second reading for 4th quarter GDP, the first showed growth at an annual rate of 3.2% (0.8% quarter on quarter).
That was a little under forecasts, but the estimate could be boosted following more solid data for the quarter.
The US also sees consumer confidence data (due Tuesday) is likely to show a further improvement, durable goods orders for January (due Thursday) (which are likely to rebound after a weak December, existing home sales (Wednesday) and new home sales (Thursday) are likely to fall back a touch in January after strong gains in December.
The Case Schiller house price index is likely to show yet another fall in December, but the market is ignoring that.
The big unknown is the rising tide of popular demonstrations in the Middle East.
That has given oil and gold a bit of a lift, but a breakdown of law and order in one or more countries such as Libya or Bahrain could see markets take fright.
Wal-Mart Stores, America’s and the world’s biggest retailer, reports its 4th quarter and 2010 sales and profit figures on Tuesday night, our time.
The report will show how much a series of severe winter storms impacted fourth-quarter results and also whether the retailing giant was able to stem same-store revenue declines that have bedevilled its US stores for the past 15 months.
Major department store chain, Macy’s Inc also reports 4th quarter and 2010 figures this week.
Home Depot, the giant hardware chain also reports, as does Hewlett Packard, the tech giant.
Reuters said on Friday that of the 413 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, 71% have exceeded Wall Street estimates.
Wall St is closed tonight, our time for President’s Day.
Eurozone business and consumer sentiment indicators are due in the coming week, while many European financial companies including Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Allianz and Credit Agricole report their results.
In Asia, Thailand reports its 4th quarter and 2010 economic growth figures later today with a solid increase expected.
And later in the week Japan reports consumer price inflation for January and industrial production and trade figures.
Ireland goes to the poll on Friday.
