Weekly Reports | Dec 16 2011
By Rudi Filapek-Vandyck
Next week will be the final week for calendar 2011 for many of us and boy, aren't we all glad this piece of misery is about to be dragged to the graveyard that is history?
It's one thing to experience a bad year for risk assets, it is a complete different kettle of fish to be subjected to the political processes of the eurozone and other troubled regions, day-in, day-out, without any reasonable prospect for a sustainable solution to the impasse. At least Lehman Brothers happened quickly.
Alas, such is the global all-encompassing context at the moment and there's certainly nothing you or I can do about it. Maybe some solace can be found in the fact that, and we all know it's true, all this shall pass at some stage, it always does. Nothing lasts forever.
Cannot wait, can you?
In the meantime, we seem to have a mild up-day today and the bounce may well extend into the weekend offshore. As per usual, these statements have to be read in conjunction with the caveat "Europe permitting".
Within this framework it's probably good to have a look at what economists at National Australia Bank had to say this morning:
"Europe’s stability may well be the calm before another storm. We remind that S&P could soon announce sovereign credit ratings downgrades for Euro-zone members. Policymakers are feeling the heat from their focus on austerity measures to reduce debt which is hitting economic growth hard. Indeed, EU leaders will hold another summit in late January or early February to discuss economic growth and jobs. Greece’s unemployment rate rose to a fresh record high of 17.7% in Q3."
Keep in mind: all this too shall pass, at some stage.
Scheduled events in the week ahead are far and few between. There are a few AGMs and EGMs and let's hope there's not too many market updates a la JB Hi-Fi ((JBH)) next week.
Next week sees another revision of the Q3 GDP estimate for the US, alongside another market update by the University of Michigan and a gauge of economic activity by the Fed in Chicago. In Australia we have the release of the minutes from the last RBA policy meeting. Next week sees a shortened ASX session on Friday.
It's only fair to say, Europe will still be present over, under and in between anything that might transpire. Time for some time off.
One more week to go…
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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