Normally the third week of every month (outside the various profit reporting seasons) is a slow period in most major economies for data.
There’s the odd election, an occasional central bank, some big deals to hog the headlines and some politics, but usually it’s a quiet time – especially in the northern summer.
But this week might end up a little more hectic than normal for investors after Amazon rattled a few retailing cages by reaching an agreed deal to buy US organic food supermarket giant, Whole Foods for $US13.7 billion.
That sent quite a few retailing and allied (consumer foods group) shares lower on Friday night in the US and Europe and it will be Australia’s turn today to feel the heat.
France completed its election with a second round of voting on Sunday that has given President Macron an overwhelming legislative majority to push his reform campaign.
But the UK political situation remains unresolved with the Brexit talks due to start tonight – so there will be some sort of government formed in by Theresa May’s Conservatives and the Ulster Unionists.
And on Tuesday the UK government and regulators will reveal if they will refer the $US18 billion bid from the Murdoch family’s 21st Century Fox for the 61% of the shares in Sky Plc it doesn’t already own.
MSCI Inc announces on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) the results of its 2017 Annual Market Classification Review, including whether the MSCI Argentina and MSCI China A indexes will be added to the emerging-markets gauge.
If the answer is yes, it will a market rattler, especially in Australia.
The UK’s Brexit secretary David Davis is set to to meet in Brussels tnight with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, to start the formal talks on the process of extracting Britain from the bloc.
The EU will be concentrating on issues of citizens’ rights (such as free movement) and the Brexit bill (for Britain to pay to leave the EU).
The UK stance has been undone by the near loss by Mrs May’s government and the loss of its parliamentary majority and Britain’s negotiating stance will be unclear for some time to come and could be quite contradictory at times.
June’s EU summit will also get underway on June 22 with a broad agenda. After a short speech from Mrs May, the UK delegation will leave on June 23, and Mr Barnier will update remaining EU members on the current status of negotiations.
In Australia, the minutes from the RBA’s last board meeting tomorrow are expected to show the central bank comfortably on hold regarding rates with most interest likely to centre around how it sees the housing market given recent signs of a cooling in Sydney and Melbourne.
March quarter ABS house price data (also tomorrow) will show growth of around 3% quarter on quarter consistent with private surveys.
The AMP’s Chief Economist, Dr Shane Oliver says “this data will be very dated given APRA’s latest tightening measures came at the end of March and since then CoreLogic data has shown a distinct softening in home prices since.”
In corporate news, watch an announcement from Downer today re the level of acceptances from Spotless shareholders over the $1.3 billion offer. Downer has 33% late last week and has said it will declare the offer unconditional if it had received 50% acceptances by Friday night.
Watch also debate in Canberra on media law changes and more news from the stricken Ten network.
The Reserve Bank of NZ will announce its latest monetary policy decision on Thursday morning – no change is expected after a report last week showing first quarter GDP of 0.5% which was a little less than expected.
This week, the US will release sales figures from May for new and previously owned homes. That data is out on Wednesday – on Friday the US Commerce Department will report on new home sales for May, following last month’s report, which showed sales dropping from an almost 10-year peak.
Markit business conditions survey outcomes on Friday are likely to remain solid at around 53 for manufacturing and 54 for services.
Eurozone business conditions surveys for June will be released Friday and are expected to remain strong at around 56-57 and Japan’s manufacturing conditions report for June will also be released earlier on the same day.
