Weekly Reports | Feb 18 2011
By Greg Peel
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is due to speak in Paris tonight on the subject of global imbalances which conjures up all sorts of images of pots and kettles and should make for interesting scrutiny.
Thereafter, George Washington has a birthday on Monday which sees Wall Street shut down ahead of another busy week of economic data releases and the tail end of the US earnings season.
Economic highlights next week include Conference Board consumer confidence, the Richmond index, existing and new home sales, house prices, durable goods, the Chicago Fed's national activity index and, on Friday, the first revision of fourth quarter GDP.
The US Treasury will also conduct another round of bond auctions next week for twos, fives and sevens which brings further euro-debt blow-outs and Arab world rumblings into the frame.
Economic data are relatively thin in Australia next week with housing affordability, construction work done, capital expenditure and the Conference Board's leading economic index the highlights.
But the real highlight of next week is the final week of the local earnings season (plus next Monday) which is the busiest of them all. The season has been a pretty lacklustre one so far so let's see if things can improve. There are too many company reports to highlight particular ones here.
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.
