Tuesday night’s Federal budget dominates the week ahead in Australia, while offshore the data flow will be slower and less important than last week, except for a meeting of eurozone finance ministers tonight, our time, which will discuss the situation in Greece.
In Australia, apart from the budget, we will get the NAB business survey for April later today instead of tomorrow to avoid clashing with the budget.
The NAB survey will be watched for further signs of improvement in conditions and confidence ahead of the budget.
A small rise in housing finance for March is expected tomorrow from the Bureau of Statistics, while March quarter wages growth will remain low and show little or no growth when released on Wednesday.
There are a few financial results this week, starting with the half year figures for Incitec Pivot later today, an interim from Orica tomorrow and full year profits from CSR as well tomorrow. GrainCorp’s full year figures will be released on Thursday (and will be lower).
On Thursday, AusNet Services releases its full year results, while Optus also releases its Q4 financial results.
Coca-Cola Amatil holds its AGM tomorrow, while on Thursday AGMs will be held by Westfield Corporation and Sydney Airport.
In the US, we can expect a modest 0.3% gain in April retail sales on Wednesday night (an 0.6% rise in core sales is forecast, after stripping out petrol and car sales) our time as the impact of the winter freeze in the US continues to recede, an improvement in the New York regional manufacturing conditions index and industrial production on Friday and another low reading for producer price inflation on Thursday.
The US first quarter profit reporting season is almost at an end with only 15 companies in the S&P 500 to report this week.
Retailers dominate this week led by releases from Macy’s, Nordstrom Inc, JC Penny, Ralph Lauren and Kohl’s Corp. Other companies to report include Cisco and Actavis. Offshore companies such as Allianz and Singapore Airlines are due to report.
In Europe, the eurozone finance ministers meeting tonight, our time, is not expected to see any agreement with Greece on a new financing deal – the two sides are at loggerheads, judging by media reports over the weekend.
The fallout from the UK election late last week continues.
Eurozone March quarter GDP data on Wednesday night, our time, is expected to confirm that growth has picked up, probably to around 0.4% quarter on quarter, which will be the strongest in four years.
Spain is likely to be a star performer with March quarter growth of 0.8% quarter on quarter already reported. Greece’s performance will be keenly watched as well.
In Asia, the final round of Chinese economic activity data for April will be released on Wednesday and is expected to show a slight improvement in momentum particularly for industrial production and retail sales.
Money supply and credit growth will also be watched for an improvement following recent monetary easing.
Again investment in real estate will be keenly watched, with analysts looking for a slowing in the rate of price falls and a modest improvement in home sales.
