Next Week At A Glance

This story features INCITEC PIVOT LIMITED, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: IPL

Last night’s move on Wall Street, and subsequent response in Australia, bring into question whether or not yet another correction has indeed failed. However, what happens tonight will set the tone for next week.

The sharp rally on Wall Street was prompted by positive productivity data which in turn made traders nervous about tonight’s unemployment data. Nervous, that is, if you’ve been short on the back of expectations of a correction in the stock market and a bounce in the US dollar. It is likely last night was a lot to do with pragmatic short-covering ahead of what tonight might reveal. A number under 10% should be positive.

The G20 finance ministers and central bankers begin their latest two-day meeting tonight in St Andrews, Scotland. No doubt Wayne Swan and Glenn Stevens will be the toast of the meeting, being representatives of the only G20 member to raise its cash rate not once (like Norway to date) but twice, while the rest of the developed world has refrained.

No doubt the G20 will simply reiterate its united stand on monetary and fiscal stimulus. Tee-off times available on the website.

It’s employment data week for Australia next week. Monday kicks off with housing finance, before Tuesday and Wednesday bring the popular private surveys on business confidence (NAB) and consumer confidence (Westpac). We will learn whether the Australian unemployment rate has continued to stabilise on Thursday.

There’ll be another massive round of US Treasury debt issuance next week, as Americans attempt to find more willing lenders for US$40bn of three-year notes, US$25bn of the all-important ten-year notes, and US$16bn of the thirty-year bonds. The ten-year bond yield has been quietly ticking up of late and has now returned back over 3.5%, seriously steepening the US yield curve from the two-years at around 1%.

The US monthly trade balance is released on Friday following the Veterans Day holiday on Wednesday (Armistace Day to you and me). Bond markets are closed for the day but stock and futures markets remain open.

Friday will also be a big day for Japan, which releases its monthy industrial production numbers, and the EU, which reveals its first estimate of September quarter GDP.

On the local stock front, Incitec Pivot ((IPL)) releases its full-year profit result next week and SP Ausnet ((SPN)) its half-year. And the AGM train rolls relentlessly on, albeit not quite as crowded nest week as the two weeks to follow.

For a more comprehensive preview of next week’s events, please refer to “The Week Ahead”, published each Monday morning. For all economic data release dates, AGM dates and times and other relevant information, please refer to the FNArena Calendar.

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