After last week, a bit of a breather for markets, investors and others with the flow of news and data more patchy and less important.
But in Australia the labour force data for February will dominate discussions late in the week, especially with the economy growing a bit more quickly than thought a month ago.
That’s why there will be considerable interest in Reserve Bank deputy Governor Phil Lowe’s first speech of 2014 in Sydney midweek.
Offshore, the coming week sees industrial production data for the Eurozone, the UK, Japan and China.
In Australia, the NAB business survey (tomorrow) will be watched for a continuation of the improvement in conditions seen in December and January.
Consumer confidence is out on Wednesday and may have a slight bounce on the back of somewhat better economic news this month.
But the publicity about job losses at Qantas might be an offsetting factor.
Housing finance for January is also out Wednesday and will confirm the rising trend continues. Lending finance figures are out on Friday.
Thursday’s jobs data for February though will be the most important release in Australia this week.
But at best, the AMP’s Dr Shane Oliver reckons the jobs data on Thursday "is likely to see only a modest 5000 bounce after two weak months with the unemployment rate remaining at a decade high 6%".
Australian jobs data to dominate the week
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No corporate results are expected this week, but the big question will be if the market can continue its recent strength.
The RBA’s Dr Lowe speaks at the Sydney Institute on Wednesday. The topic of this week’s speech is "Demography, Innovation and Innovation".
In the US, it’s a quiet week on the data front but retail sales on Thursday night, our time, are expected to show continued modest growth and consumer sentiment data on Friday night will be watched for further modest improvement.
Producer price data is also due out on Friday.
Only two S&P 500 companies are due to produce quarterly reports this week – Urban Outfitters and ultra discount retailer Dollar General.
In Asia, China’s combined industrial production, retail sales and urban investment figures are due out on Thursday, along with bank lending and car sales and production figures earlier in the week.
The Chinese activity data for the January-February period "is likely to show a modest slowing in industrial production, fixed asset investment and retail sales. Lending and credit growth is likely to have slowed after the usual January surge," the AMP’s Dr Oliver wrote at the weekend.
The Bank of Japan meets Tuesday, and won’t make any change to policy, according to Dr Oliver. He says it will prefer to hold its fire power till it gauges the impact of the April sales tax hike.
"Further easing is likely to be needed around mid-year though, in part to encourage a further leg down in the value of the Yen," he wrote.
Japan’s industrial production figures for February are due out on Friday. Bank of Japan board minutes for last month are also due out the same day.
Results in Asia include Cathay Pacific.
In Europe, industrial production figures for Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK are out this week, as well as trade and retail sales for Britain.
Current account figures for Germany are also out, along with final estimates for 4th quarter growth in Italy.
Results are expected from Lagardare of France, Italian banks UniCredit and Banca Monti dei Paschi (which is a basket case) and Hugo Boss and Deutsche Lufthansa in Germany.
And watch for the financial results from UK supermarkets group William Morrison.
It is suffering from falling sales and profits and is tipped to announce huge losses from write downs and asset impairments.
It is the 4th biggest supermarkets group in Britain – the biggest, Tesco, has also been struggling for more than two years with weak sales and profits. It has already announced big losses at home and in the US where a costly expansion plan went bad.
Sainsbury, another big UK chain wrote down its property last year by 100 million pounds. Tesco’s write down was a huge 800 million. Morrison’s write down is tipped to be in the range 200 to 300 million.
These write downs (and more problems in the US where Safeway, one of the country’s biggest supermarket chains, is being taken private in a $US9 billion buyout by rival chain Albertson’s and its private equity owners) contrast to the situation in Australia, where Woolworths and Coles are enjoying record sales and profits and rising property values.
