Another busy week ahead for markets and economies here and offshore, though hopefully without some of the dramas of last week for banks in Australia, media stocks around the globe, jobs in the US and Australia, plus interest rates.
So the start of the coming week sees a public holiday in the US tonight for Columbus Day, meaning a compressed four day period for data releases, earnings and other news, and quite trading for the next two days.
As well, we will see wages, business confidence and conditions, June 30 earnings reports and updates (especially from a trio of banks) in Australia, retail sales and retailer profits in the US, more economic data from China and GDP for the eurozone (Greece will be interesting).
In Australia, we have the improving July NAB business confidence and conditions survey tomorrow. The market expects a slight pull back in confidence and conditions reflecting the negative news around Greece and China in July, but the August consumer sentiment survey (on Wednesday) should show an improvement.
The major release will be the June quarter wage index on Wednesday (more subdued growth and perhaps another dip in real wages), and average weekly earnings on Thursday.
Growth is expected to remain weak at around 0.5% quarter on quarter, taking the annual growth rate to a new record low of 2.2% year on year.
Speeches by RBA Deputy Governor Phil Lowe (on Wednesday, about property and land), and the head of Economics Assistant Governor Chris Kent (Friday on the labour market) will be watched closely for any additional clues on the outlook for interest rates.
And besides the wage price index on Wednesday and the average weekly earnings data on Thursday, the Bureau of Statistics will release lending finance figures later today and more detailed data on the labour market on Thursday.
Local earnings reports start flowing this week: watch for the banks – Bendigo and Adelaide and the NAB’s latest trading updates are out today while the Commonwealth’s Bank’s full year figures are due Wednesday.
There are also results from Telstra, Cochlear, CSL, JB HI Fi (important for retailers), media stocks such as News Corp and Fairfax Media, Transurban and an interim from Oz Minerals.
In Asia, the next round of monthly data from China will be vital for our economy (and the stumbling Chinese stock market as well).
After the weak trade data on Saturday (especially exports) and moderate inflation (but not at the producer level), the key monthly activity data will be issued on Wednesday.
The AMP’s Dr Shane Oliver says we can ”expect July activity data to show a slight further slowing in growth in industrial production to 6.6% year on year, but stable growth in retail sales of around 10.6% and fixed asset investment of around 11.5% (all due Wednesday)".
“Growth in money supply, bank lending and credit is likely to slow from June levels but remain accommodative,” he wrote at the weekend.
As well there will be the key housing investment data released on Wednesday – the key question is if the signs of a bottoming out in the past couple of months continued into July. House price data is out the following week.
In the US a quieter week than last week is expected, with July retail sales growth on Thursday night, our time, and July industrial production.
Both are tipped to show an improvement, as will consumer confidence, while producer price inflation will remain low (all due Friday). Watch also for the weekly data on oil stocks and production, and oil rig numbers (Wednesday and Friday nights respectively).
Both will be highly important given the current price slide which are now approaching 2015 lows reached earlier in the year.
America’s June quarter reporting season slows sharply this week – only 16 or so major companies releasing results – the most interest will be in department store chains such as Macys and Nordstrom and the computing networking and services giant, Cisco.
In Europe, eurozone June quarter GDP data (Friday) is likely to show a further slight pick-up in GDP growth to 0.5% quarter on quarter or 1.5% year on year, with Spanish growth out in front (1% quarter on quarter has already been reported).
Watch for Greece’s data to see the impact of the bailout charade and posturing from the government.
