What’s Happening Next Week?

This story features WESTPAC BANKING CORPORATION, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: WBC

By Andrew Nelson

With the rate cut still a warm memory, next week’s speech from RBA Governor Glenn Stevens is unlikely to offer much in the way of interest rate guidance, but the question and answer portion of the evening could prove interesting. Next week brings us job ads and employment data, business and consumer confidence reads and inflation expectations just to name a few. And let’s not forget Westpac’s ((WBC)) AGM.

In the US, upcoming data is likely to paint a poor picture of the health of the US economy. Statistics on the housing market, retail sales and consumer confidence will be released next week.

Over the weekend we’ll have a number of employment and payroll releases out of the US to think about as well as the EU composite index for November. That will lead us into Monday.

In our region, the big news will be the Q3 GDP read from Japan, as well as current account data and the economy watcher survey. New Zealand sees November house prices and in Australia, there’s the November ANZ job ads series.

Tuesday starts with key data from the UK, including PPI and IP reads, while Europe gives us the results from the Sentix investor confidence survey. Japan puts out  the leading and coincident indices for October.

Australia will be watching the speech from RBA Governor Glenn Stevens and looking at the results from the November NAB business survey. There are also a few minor AGMs on the calendar.

Wednesday starts with a flood of data from the northern hemisphere, including European economic sentiment, UK trade balance, retail sales, house prices and manufacturing production numbers. The US puts out pending home sales for October.

NZ terms of trade heads up the releases in our region, while Japan puts out machine tool orders and domestic CGPI.  In Australia we’re looking at housing finance and investment lending numbers. There’s nothing on the local corporate calendar.

Thursday sees us look at the UK’s GDP estimate, while from the US there’s wholesale trade numbers and the US Treasury Statement for November. China releases its CPI data, New Zealand has business PMI and food prices and in Australia we’ve got inflation expectations for December.

ABB Grain ((ABB)) pays out a 14c dividend, while Bank of Queensland ((BOQ)) and Westpac host their AGMs.

On Friday we start with the US trade balance and jobless claims data, with NZ retail sales and Japanese consumer confidence reads following.  There’s nothing on the Australian economic calendar for the day and the corporate calendar only shows an AGM for Macquarie Office ((MOF)).

That’s it for now. If you need any more information please check the calendar on the site and tune in Monday for The Week Ahead.

Click to view our Glossary of Financial Terms