Weekly Reports | Mar 19 2010
By Greg Peel
Tonight in the US sees options expiry which has the potential to cause artificial volatility and false impressions. Next week we will get a better idea if the S&P 500 really wants to be above 1150 or not. US economic data have been none too inspiring but Wall Street is still running on the joy of Ben Bernanke yet again reiterating that interest rates will remain low for some time.
Next week in the US sees some important data releases including new and existing home sales, the FHFA house price index, durable goods orders and retail sales. On Friday the final revision will be made to the US fourth quarter GDP, which came in at 5.7% on first estimate and 5.9% on first revision.
Next week the US Treasury will auction off another US$118bn of debt to fund the deficits, across two-year, five-year and seven-year notes. The Fed chairman noted in a testimony to Congress this week that the rest of the world and the domestic market are still happy to buy US debt, which is another reason why interest rates do not need to rise at this point.
It's a quiet week in Australia with vehicle sales on Monday, skilled vacancies on Wednesday and the RBA's financial stability review on Thursday. There will be another round of local stocks going ex-dividend.
New Zealand releases its fourth quarter GDP on Thursday.
For a more comprehensive preview of next week's events, please refer to "The Monday Report", published each Monday morning. For all economic data release dates, ex-div dates and times and other relevant information, please refer to the FNArena Calendar.
