The week ahead: Australian jobs, Chinese economic data for last month, a Kiwi rate decision and US retail sales, not to mention oil and the worsening unrest in Libya.
The situation could worsen on Friday night with a day of rage called for Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil supplier. That will worry markets.
Friday night’s jobs report for the US last month was OK, not brilliant, so what will Australia’s February report on Thursday reveal?
More growth, or a slowing, as we perhaps saw in January with a fall in new full time jobs and a rise in part time employment?
Before the Thursday release we will get business confidence and conditions from the NAB tomorrow, and consumer confidence on Wednesday from Westpac; the ANZ job ads report is later today.
The confidence figures for both business and consumers respectively are likely to show a modest improvement after the recent flood-induced weakness.
The AMP’s Dr Shane Oliver says housing finance (on Wednesday) is expected to be broadly flat and Thursday’s jobs report "is likely to show another solid rise in jobs but unemployment remaining stable at 5%".
This week sees three appearances by from senior Reserve Bank officials. RBA assistant governor (economic) Philip Lowe speaks to the Australian Industry Group Forum in Sydney on Wednesday.
Later that night (Australian time) governor Glenn Stevens speaks at an Australian Business in Europe lunch in London (released early Thursday morning).
And on Friday Guy Debelle, Assistant Governor (Financial Markets), and John Broadbent, Head of Domestic Markets Department, appear at the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services in Sydney.
In the corporate area it will be fairly quiet, mostly company meetings.
They will include Forte Energy, Helix Resources, A-Cap Resources, Australian Mines, Mount Magnet South, Viterra Inc (Canada), Transerv Energy, Altona Mining and Xceed Capital.
The one result appears to be Myer’s interim on Friday which has already been announced as a lower profit.
Chinese economic data for February is due from Wednesday onwards (see above story).
The AMP’s Dr Oliver says the figures are "likely to show some moderation in the pace of economic growth and inflation, adding to confidence that China may be close to the end of its monetary tightening cycle.
"In particular, consumer price inflation is expected to moderate from 4.9% in January to 4.8%, partly due to a fall back in food prices."
The China’s National People’s Congress continues this week with major appearances by the next the new post 2012 leadership group expected.
Also expected, Cathay Pacific Airways’ earnings, data on core machinery orders from Japan, Japan’s fourth-quarter GDP and interest rate decisions from South Korea and New Zealand (on Thursday).
On Thursday, the Bank of Korea meets and another interest rate rise could be coming after the CPI hit an annual 4.5% in February.
Korea held steady last month after raising its key rate by 0.25% in January to 2.75%.
Also Thursday, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand will reveal its latest policy decision, and could cut interest rates after last month’s devastating Christchurch earthquake.
US reports at the weekend said The International Monetary Fund will cut its growth forecast for New Zealand, and will send a delegation to the country this week.
In the US, retail sales data for February (due Friday) is likely to show a continuation of solid growth, but consumer sentiment data (also due Friday) may ease in response to recent increases in oil and gasoline prices.
Profit reports are only due from three S&P 500 companies, all minor groups in the global and Australian context.
In London the Bank of England is not expected to lift rates, even though there will be more angst about the 4% inflation rate that will possibly be boosted by higher oil prices in coming months.
German inflation data is also expected at the end of the week.
