Australian economic growth for the December quarter and 2022 calendar year, plus the end of the December reporting period for ASX-listed companies, will dominate local markets this week, which in turn will be battling the latest mood swing on Wall Street.
As well there’s the start of month surveys of business activity to be released tomorrow and Wednesday for leading economies, including Japan, China, South Korea, the Eurozone countries, the UK the US and some other countries – and Australia.
December earnings seasons will slow and end in some countries – Australia and the US, for instance.
The 4th quarter GDP data will be released on Wednesday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and before that there will be business indicators today and the current account and the government finance data for the same period (and for 2022 as a whole).
While the GDP is historical, there will be interest in the strength of consumer spending and household consumption, the strength of the terms of trade, the impact of inflation, updated productivity data and more information on wages and salaries.
The market is looking for quarter on quarter growth in the range of 0.6% to 0.9% (0.6% in the September quarter) which would see 2022 growth around 2.8% to 3%, depending on revisions to previous quarters.
That in turn would have half the 5.6% rate in the year to September and the fall will be mostly due to the 3.4% quarterly growth in the December quarter of 2021 dropping out.
The Reserve Bank has forecast growth of 2.7% for the year to December.
As well the ABS releases more current data for January – the increasingly important monthly inflation indicator for January, and retail sales for the same month.
The ABS also releases data for building approvals for January and lending data for the same months.
Australia’s December reporting season ends today and tomorrow with only a handful of ASX 200 companies due to report. These include Woodside, Appen, Downer EDI (which could be bad with big write downs and losses), Invocare, Healius and Adbri.
Harvey Norman is also due to report, along with Sandfire Resources, and Swoop.
China’s post-Lunar New Year business activity data for February tomorrow and Wednesday will give a reading of the health of the world’s number-two economy. Economists will be looking for more evidence the economy has re-opened. That really won’t be confirmed till the data for January and February is released in mid-March.
The Eurozone sees the flash inflation data this week – with preliminary February data from Germany, France, Spain and Portugal are due on Monday and Tuesday, followed by the bloc-wide flash number on Thursday.
In the US, it’s a quiet week with the normal first week of the month release of the previous month’s jobs data to be released on march 10 (Friday week).
There will be data for durable goods, consumer confidence, house prices, car sales for February.
Then reports on US durable goods orders, home prices as well as manufacturing and consumer confidence will be examined to see if they confirm the new expectations of more Fed rate rises and end the early-year Wall Street-led rally.
There’s also the final phase of the December quarter reporting season.
The most prominent companies will be retailers, led by Target, Lowe’s Cos, Autozone, Costco, Ross Stories, Kroger and Best buy.
Other companies down to report include Fosters’ owner ABInBev, US EV maker, US EV maker Rivian, Hormel Foods (Spam), and Occidental Petroleum (Warren Buffett’s favourite investment in 2022).
