Weekly Reports | Aug 26 2011
By Greg Peel
There's no point in discussing Jackson Hole any further other than to say Wall Street seems to have already priced in “no result”. (See QE3 Disappointment Ahead). Bernanke's speech begins shortly after markets open, and note also that the ECB president is due to make an unrelated speech thereafter.
The US June quarter GDP will see its first revision tonight and that is expected to be a downgrade to 1.1% growth from the initial 1.3% estimate. The Fortnightly consumer sentiment index is also due and last time that was a real shocker.
Next week in the US sees the minutes of the last Fed meeting due on Tuesday, but other than assessing the amount of dissent in the ranks over current policy one assumes the release will be trumped tonight anyway. There is nevertheless a wealth of US data out next week.
They include pending homes sales, personal consumption, the Case-Shiller house price index, the Conference Board leading index, the Chicago PMI, factory orders, construction spending, chain store sales and productivity. Plenty of grist for the mill there. And that's before you get to the ADP private sector employment report and the non-farm payrolls report, as well as the manufacturing PMI.
Double dip? We may know by next week.
Thursday is global manufacturing PMI day, with all of Australia, China, the eurozone, UK and US reporting. And Lord only knows what talk may emanate from Europe next week, if at all, although maybe attention will be centred on religion.
Aside from the PMI, Australia will see new home sales, private sector credit, a house price index, and retail sales. But the most important release next week will be June quarter capital expenditure and expenditure intentions on the Thursday. Aside from providing economists with significant clues on June quarter GDP, these numbers have been driving the RBA's hawkish stance up to now, alongside high commodity prices.
The Australian result season continues into next week, but it all comes to a screaming halt after Wednesday. Highlights next week include QR National ((QRN)) and Harvey Norman ((HVN)) but there are plenty more.
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.
