It’s the Reserve Bank’s week in Australia this week, with four speeches and public appearances from the governor Glenn Stevens and his deputy Phil Lowe, plus the release of one of the bank’s major reports on the Australian economy – its first financial stability assessment for 2014.
Overseas it’s the last estimate of US 4th quarter economic growth and the early (or ‘flash’) reports on the health of manufacturing around the world, especially China, which will be the biggest single influence.
In Australia, last week’s minutes from the March RBA board meeting made it clear the central bank is no longer as concerned about the strength of the dollar, or inflation.
As a result it is in watch and wait mode as the economy continues its slow transition from mining investment boom to a broader-based growth path.
And that will be the message from the bank’s two senior most officials this week.
Dominating the week will be the speeches by Governor Stevens and Deputy Governor Lowe. Mr Lowe speaks in Sydney on Tuesday and then appears at another function on Wednesday where he is due to make some introductory remarks.
Wednesday is the big day. Besides Mr Lowe’s appearance, Governor Glenn Stevens speaks in Hong Kong at an investment conference (he has spoken at the conference previously) and then is on a panel in the afternoon.
Wednesday also sees the first of the two stability reports for 2014 released by the RBA.
And, by the end of the week we should have a solid idea of how the RBA sees the economy at the end of the first quarter, and how it could travel over the rest of the year.
It’s an ideal warm-up for the Federal Budget in May.
And the RBA releases the financial aggregates for March and for the quarter on Friday.
In the corporate area, the group of companies around the Robert Milner empire (Brickworks, etc) report this week, not last week as we said a week ago.
So TPG Telecom is due to produce its interim figures on Tuesday. New Hope, Brickworks and Washington Soul Pattinson are all due to report this week.
Funtastic, which has already told the market it will report a big loss, is due to report on Tuesday as well.
Nufarm also releases its results on Wednesday and is expected to report poor figures after announcing the revamp of its Australian operations 10 days ago.
Kathmandu (interim, today) Sigma (full year, Thursday), Premier Investments (interim, tomorrow) also report this week.
In Asia, the ‘flash’ report from China’s manufacturing sector will be out later today from Markit/HSBC.
Some analysts say that rather than another weak report, as many in the market think will be issued, there could be a surprise bounce with other surveys suggesting a rebound.
Chinese banks start releasing their profit reports this week and will be watched for signs of rising bad debts and impairments.
Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China are both due to report, along with the big oil group, CNOOC.
In Japan the end of month data dump happens on Thursday and Friday with retail sales, employment and inflation data all due for release.
In the US the ‘flash’ survey of manufacturing tonight, our time, will show activity remains solid (as a similar report for the New York area did late last week) and has recovered from the impact of the miserable winter.
As well, the monthly Case Schiller survey of house prices will show further gains, but at a slower rate.
New home sales are expected to show a slowdown from the 10% rise in February.
Data on consumer sentiment, pending home sales and durable goods orders will also be released this week.
In the US only two corporate profit results of any note – video games group, GameStop and PVH, the owner of Calvin Klein, are the final two S&P 500 companies to report.
And US data on personal income and spending will also be released.
In Europe, the various PMIs will likely confirm ongoing economic recovery, but watch for any impact from the tensions in Ukraine. Data for Russia will not be pretty.
Results in Europe this week will include the big women’s fashionwear retailer H&M and the big Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo.
