The coming week will see more COVID-19 cases and warnings, updates of manufacturing and service sector activity and a number of central bank decisions as well as US inflation data for May.
Central Banks in NZ, the Philippines, Thailand, Hungary and the Czech Republic deliver decisions this week on monetary policy.
As well the International Monetary Fund will update its April economic forecasts. They will be issued Wednesday.
And the US Federal Reserve will release the results of their latest bank stress tests that, if upbeat, could see Wall Street kick higher.
In Australia a mostly quiet weak – a weak start to the markets today followed by a video appearance by Reserve Bank Governor, Philip Lowe.
The usual scrutiny of his comments will occur to see if the central bank has changed its thinking on the economy – it hasn’t past what was in the latest board minutes released last week.
We will also see early data on trade for May tomorrow, job vacancies on Thursday and before the figures on skilled job vacancies.
The AMP’s chief economist, Shane Oliver says “On the data front expect preliminary goods trade data for May (Tuesday) to be consistent with an ongoing trade surplus, ABS job vacancies data for the three months to May (Thursday) are likely to show a sharp fall in catch up to more timely vacancy data but skilled vacancy data for the month of May (Wednesday) is likely to show a rise.”
Corporate results are few and far between – Metcash, the supermarkets chain releases its full year results later today.
Analysts are expecting a solid rise in turnover (after earlier encouraging updates because of the boost from panic buying) but costs will be higher, also due to COVID. Liquor and hardware sales are likely to be mixed – liquor down, Mitre 10 sales higher (as were those at rival Bunnings).
Toll Road company, Transurban provides a quarterly update and building products group, CSR holds its annual meeting with the market looking for guidance in a Post-COVID environment for housing and construction.
Across the Tasman the Reserve Bank of NZ releases its latest monetary policy decision Wednesday – no change is expected.
Trends in new coronavirus cases will continue to be watched closely, particularly in US states which are seeing rising trends, along with the recent increase in China, Brazil and Victoria.
On the economic front the big focus in the week will be preliminary business conditions PMIs for June to be released in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia tomorrow.
All are expected to show a continuation of the rebound seen in May consistent with economic activity recovering as economies are reopened.
In the US, there will be releases of updates on existing home sales (today), new home sales (tomorrow), durable goods orders (Thursday) and personal spending (Friday) with the data on price rises favoured by the Fed.
AMP chief economist, Dr Shane Oliver says the record 17.7% surge in US retail sales seen in May “points to a strong rise in personal spending as consumers start to run down the record 33% saving rate seen in April.”
He also says the consumer price data in Friday’s personal consumption expenditure report “points to a further fall in core personal consumption deflator inflation for May to just 0.8% year on year.”
Thursday sees the release of the latest stress tests on America’s biggest banks which will determine if the banks can resume paying higher dividends and share buybacks.
Thursday also sees the release of the latest jobless claims for the US.
In Asia China’s central bank announces its latest prime loan rate decision today. Japanese retail sales data will be issued on Friday. There’s the preliminary survey of manufacturing and service sector activity for Japan later today (and in Germany and the eurozone and UK tomorrow).
