Next Week At A Glance

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By Greg Peel

The situation in Europe is still up in the air. The referendum is dead in the water as far as we know but George Papandreou will still face a confidence vote from his party tonight at midnight Athens time. The Greek opposition is supposedly prepared to support the austerity bill needed for Greece to keep receiving bail-out funds but such support was made contingent on Papandreou resigning and an election being called. If Papandreou wins the confidence vote then it's still not exactly clear how the opposition will respond.

In the meantime the G20 leaders are preparing for the possibility that Greece may exit the eurozone, referendum or not. EU leaders have suggested an exit may be necessary if the single currency is to survive, and G20 leaders are suggesting an increase in funding for the IMF in order to provide an emergency buffer against the potential fallout. Britain, for one, has agreed to contribute to increased funding but does not believe it is the IMF's role to solve a “structural problem” in the eurozone.

The G20 intends to publish an action plan that will include a call on Germany, China and Japan to expand their domestic economies and a required commitment from Italy that it will once and for all tackle its budget situation. And everyone is, of course, pleading with Greece to get its act together.

That's where we are as I write, and presumably the eurozone finance ministers are still planning to have their meeting on Sunday.

Turning to next week, earnings reports continue in the US in a week which sees economic data releases fairly scant. We'll see wholesale trade, the monthly budget and the fortnightly consumer sentiment measure. The Treasury will auction three and ten-year notes and thirty-year bonds.

It's a bit busier in Australia for which we'll see the ANZ job ad, NAB business confidence and Westpac consumer confidence measures. Releases further include the trade balance, housing finance and investment lending, and unemployment on the Thursday.

On Wednesday China will provide its monthly data dump of inflation, retail sales and industrial production data as well as its trade balance on Thursday. Thursday also sees a Bank of England monetary policy meeting.

Another busy round of AGMs will dominate local corporate activity while Orica ((ORI)), Westfield ((WDC)) and Santos will provide results and/or updates.

The US will go off summer time on the weekend which means that as of next week the NYSE will close at 8am Sydney time. 
 

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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