Economic conflabs dominate the coming week, especially in Australia. There’s the annual APEC meeting in Beijing midweek, and then the 2014 G20 Leaders meeting in Brisbane.
These talks will have little impact on markets, unlike the last couple of weeks when decisions and comments from some of the world’s major central bankers and their leaders helped send markets mostly higher (and the Japanese yen sharply lower against the greenback).
There will be more spin and politics as the G20 countries attempt to boost global growth by an extra 2% over the next five years will be well meaning, but it will mean nothing to economic reality.
But watch for some controversy from Wednesday’s AGM of the Commonwealth Bank.
China will see the remaining economic data for October released this week, with analysts watching the latest Chinese housing data closely after the Reserve Bank singled out the sector as a possible major negative influence for Australia in its Statement of Monetary Policy last Friday.
After the mixed trade data for last month released at the weekend, this week’s updates will be led by the inflation data for October later today, and then industrial production, retail sales, fixed asset investment and early housing data on Thursday.
The AMP’s Dr Shane Oliver says this week’s data will be “consistent with GDP growth of around 7 to 7%".
But he added that “The case for further monetary easing in China remains strong".
In Australia, we can expect to see a modest rise in September housing finance (later today), another solid rise in the Bureau of Statistics’ house price index (tomorrow) for the September quarter continued relatively subdued readings for the NAB survey’s business conditions and confidence measures (also tomorrow) and for consumer confidence (on Wednesday).
The September Wage Price Index will confirm wages growth remaining very weak at around 2.6% year on year.
Today’s housing finance data will by closely watched by the RBA which will check the proportion of loans going to investors.
The RBA’s lending data at the end of October showed investor housing loans growing at an annual rate of 9% over the September quarter, the highest for a number of years.
Chris Aylmer, head of the Reserve Bank’s domestic markets department, delivers a speech on Tuesday at the Australian Securitisation Conference which will be watched for any comments on housing.
On Thursday Christopher Kent, the Reserve Bank’s Assistant Governor (Economic), is due to speak at an Australian Business Economists event in Sydney.
The annual meeting season continues with Wednesday’s meeting of Commonwealth Bank shareholders which will see the financial planning scandal raised and discussed. It is likely to generate a lot of publicity.
Other companies with AGMs this week include Energy Developments, Aurizon, Lend Lease, Qube, Webster, REA Group, BluScope Steel, Computershare, Breville, Mount Gibson Iron and Automotive Holdings.
Profit announcements will come from Incitec Pivott and GrainCorp.
In the US, retailing will dominate with quarter updates from a number of sector leaders and October’s retail sales for October on Friday.
They are forecast to bounce back from the soft sales level in the previous month.
US third quarter earnings start tapering off this week with only 15 companies in the S&P 500 down to release results.
Retailers will dominate with reports expected from Walmart, Dillard, Macy’s, J.C. Penny, Kohl’s and Nordstrom.
Other companies reporting this week include Viacom the Pay TV cable group, Transocean the oil driller (which on Friday slipped out news of an asset impairment loss of $US2.8 billion) and the giant tech equipment group Cisco.
In the Eurozone, September quarter GDP growth on Friday is expected to show growth still weak and around an average 0.2%, for the three months to September, after flat growth in the June quarter.
This would be more in line with PMIs and confidence readings but is still very subdued.
Data for industrial production (Wednesday) will also be released.
Inflation forecasts for the UK will be released, along with final inflation figures for the eurozone.
Employment data will be released as well.
