Weekly Reports | Nov 19 2010
By Greg Peel
There are no major economic releases in the US or elsewhere tonight so Wall Street will likely just sit back and bask in the post-GM glow, keeping an ear out for any more specific news out of Ireland or China.
Next week sees the Thanksgiving holiday on the Thursday in the US for which the country shuts down to worship the gods of saturated fat and sugar, which is followed by the Friday excuse for a market in which the NYSE gives it away at 1pm instead of the usual 4pm.
Friday is nevertheless considered the most important single day on the calendar for retailers and is known as “Black Friday”. Don't panic – in this case it refers to “in the black” for those retailers so weighted toward Christmas sales that the first ten months of the year see the books in the red as inventory is built. The sales results on Friday are taken as the gauge of whether or not it will be a good Christmas for consumer spending.
Prior to what is ostensibly a four-day weekend the US will cram in as many economic data releases as it can, including the Chicago Fed national activity index, the Richmond manufacturing index, durable goods, house prices, consumer sentiment, and personal income and expenditure. The Fed will release the minutes of the “QE2 meeting” and the first revision of third quarter GDP will be made.
The UK will make its equivalent first revision as the sellers of crap gear up for royal nuptials (it might send the Chinese PMI through the roof!) and the EU will release its closely watched IFO sentiment index.
In Australia it's the biggest week of the year for AGMs on the measure of sheer numbers, albeit we're mostly down to the tiddlers now and ASX 200 companies are few and far between. It's otherwise quiet on the economic front with the Conference Board leading economic index and third quarter private sector capex the highlights. The latter has the power to make the RBA look prescient, or not.
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.
