So where to for sharemarkets this week after their retreat last week which was triggered by problems at Portugal’s biggest bank?

Another big week ahead for Australia, with key economic data from China, the Reserve Bank minutes, and the interim report of the inquiry into the financial system chaired by former Commonwealth Bank boss David Murray.

On Monday we pointed to emerging market concerns about banking problems in Portugal, as well as separate worries in Eastern Europe, which had hurt one of Austria’s largest banks.

China’s imports of key commodities, such as oil, copper and iron ore fell for a second month in June thanks to unfavourable prices, economic uncertainties and tighter credit.

Chinese trade data for June was better than May’s performance, according to numbers out yesterday, but the country is looking as though it will fall short of official targets for the full year.

There was something for everyone in the June jobs data – from the bears to the optimists – the figures contained the seeds of just about every point of view about the health of the economy.

Good news for New Zealand and the country’s conservative government in the run up to the national elections later this year – Fitch yesterday upgraded the country’s credit rating to AA positive, which means there’s a slight chance of a further upgrade within the next couple of years.

Of all China’s myriad of economic concerns (according to western analysts), the country doesn’t have an inflation problem – but could it be facing a looming deflation problem?

Australian business conditions continue to improve, despite the impact of the federal budget, weak trading conditions for many retailers and wholesalers and continuing job losses.

Manufacturing, retailing and finance companies will be up first this week as the important US second quarter profit reporting season kicks off.

With the US closed on Friday night, trading volumes across the rest of the world were understandably lighter than normal, but that didn’t stop the European and Asian markets from enjoying a very solid week (like Wall Street did overnight Thursday, our time).

Australia’s labour force data for June dominates the local trading week, while the start of June’s monthly flow of data will dominate offshore activity, especially in Asia.

No matter what yesterday’s data drop on the economy told us about its current strength (retail sales and building approvals, two of the major stats, plus car sales), the big message was delivered by Reserve Bank Governor, Glenn Stevens in a speech in faraway Hobart (to econometricians) half an hour earlier at 11am.

The American economy continues to boost new job numbers with June recording a massive 288,000 new positions created, news which pushed the Dow above 17,000 points for the first time and a record close, and also helped the S&P 500 to yet another record as well.

Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens took aim at a number of issues in a speech to econometricians (economists whose lives are dominated by models and maths) in Hobart yesterday and in doing so revealed some of the central bank’s core policy thinking that normally doesn’t see the light of day.

The US Federal Reserve won’t try and head off rises in asset prices (which some might argue are bubbles) by using monetary policy (which means interest rate rises) is a development that every investor should be aware of.

As expected, Australia’s trade account worsened in May. But what was not expected was the extent of that worsening.

Good news yesterday for Australia from our top two commodity export markets with signs the Chinese economy has resumed growing, and continuing confidence in Japan among business about the current expansion.

Traders shrugged off the concern expressed yesterday by Reserve Bank Governor about the refusal of the Aussie dollar to fall by pushing the currency to yet another eight month high of 95.05 US cents in US trading early today.

Unlike Australia, Wall Street finished June and the second quarter with something of a wet sail.

Lending in May hit its strongest growth rate in more than five years, thanks mostly to housing, and especially investment housing loans.

Amid all the talk of double digital returns in the year to June 30 in Australia, the market analysts this morning have been reticent on how bad the performance has been in the first six months of 2014.

Now here’s a big tip for investors – big US companies no longer think their shares are the bees knees when it comes to spending shareholder funds.

Business economists have pretty well got the message that the Reserve Bank won’t be moving interest rates any time soon.