Next Week At A Glance

This story features WOOLWORTHS GROUP LIMITED. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: WOW

By Greg Peel

What's going to happen next week? Well apparently we will know definitively what the proposed solution to Europe's woes will be on Wednesday night. That announcement trumps all others, and probably represents the most significant announcement post GFC. If the market likes the plan, we go up. If not, we go down.

In the meantime eurozone finance ministers meet tonight, the EU summit runs from Sunday to Monday and thereafter yet another meeting is planned between Merkel and Sarkozy before Wednesday. While it is likely European officials will give nothing away until then, the latest trend is for newspapers to put out ill-informed speculative pieces forcing officials to respond.

We can talk about it forever of course, but all we can really do now is wait.

In the meantime, the US earnings season rolls on next week. There's also a wealth of US economic data due, including the Chicago national activity index, house prices, home sales, durable goods and personal income and spending. On Thursday the first estimate of US September quarter GDP will be released. Whether or not any of these numbers matter is up to Europe.

Will the RBA cut on Cup Day? Economists are split. A lot is riding on next Wednesday's September quarter CPI result. Any sign of inflation weakness would likely prompt the RBA into action, but this week I have continued to point out the issue I see with timing. The RBA decision falls on November 1 and the G20 meeting starts on November 3. The G20 meeting is still meant to be the deadline for European agreement but now we're going to hear something “definitive” this Wednesday. So again, it likely depends on what does or doesn't happen in Europe between now and the jump as to whether the RBA is in a position to make a confident policy change.

Deputy RBA governor Ric Battelino will speak next Tuesday and he's usually good for something hawkish. The PPI and CPI releases dominate next week's Australian economic calendar.

There may not be much in the way of data, but next week sees an absolute avalanche of Australian corporate AGMs. There will also be plenty more quarterly updates to ponder, and Woolies ((WOW)) reports its sales numbers on Thursday.

So it's crunch time next week, we hope. We couldn't stand if it all lingered on any further.

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.

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