Weekly Reports | Sep 28 2012
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.
By Greg Peel
Japan will provide a Chinese-style monthly “data dump” today but now that Fukushima and its fallout are no longer news, the world has gone back to largely ignoring the Japanese economy.
Tonight in the US sees personal income and spending, consumer sentiment and the Chicago PMI, but once again all eyes will be on Spain.
Spain has organised a line of credit from the troika worth E100m to be used as capital injections to rescue Spanish banks laden down with worthless mortgages. Tonight's results of stress tests on bank balance sheets will determine just what net level of funds they need. Consensus suggests E40-60bn but more sceptical commentators believe the whole E100bn will be up for grabs.
Clearly the lower the number, the more positive for global markets. This line of credit is a loan that will only increase Spain's debt at a time the government is risking political demise with budget cuts. It differs from a bail-out which is more of a straight hand-out in exchange for budgetary discipline.
Moving into next week, Monday is the first of the month and that means global manufacturing PMI day, with all of Australia, China, the eurozone, UK and US reporting. These releases will be followed up by a round of service sector PMIs on Wednesday.
China will take a holiday from Tuesday for Golden Week which will probably lead to quiet commodity markets and perhaps a bit of relief from having to watch the Shanghai index plummet. The US focus will turn inward once more as it is employment week, with the ADP private sector number out on Wednesday and non-farm payrolls on Friday. With QE3 now in place, any surprises will impact more on politics than on the markets. And QE does not work overnight.
For Australia the focus will be on the RBA rate decision on Tuesday. Despite much speculation, and despite the futures markets suggesting otherwise, economist consensus is for no change. October is not a popular month for RBA changes with November – Cup Day – offering data on September quarter economic and inflation performance beforehand. Moreover, the iron ore price has steadied since last meeting.
Perhaps the economic highlight of the week in Australia will be the retail sales figures due on Thursday.
Note that Monday is a public holiday in NSW but not in all states. This means the ASX will be open, but given all major brokers are based in Sydney it will be a very quiet session unless the world blows up or something. FNArena will be “open” (the website is always open) but service will be abbreviated given lack of daily research.
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