The Monday Report

This story features NINE ENTERTAINMENT CO. HOLDINGS LIMITED, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: NEC

By Greg Peel

A handful of skeletons with sore heads clattered their way into New York on Friday, stepping around the queues outside department stores, to man the desks for the half-day sessions in the stock and commodity markets. Noting long queues, and reports from major chains that crowds were strong for the Black Friday sales, they pushed up the stock indices to the tune of around 80 Dow points.

Then at 12.30pm, with half an hour to go, someone yelled out “End of month square up time!” and in thin trade the Dow closed down 10 points. The S&P lost a point to 1805 but the Nasdaq managed to hold onto gains, finishing up 0.5%. The skeletons then gratefully left the building and set off to enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend, content in the knowledge Wall Street ended another week, and another month, higher.

Black Friday is a US pre-Christmas version of Australia’s post-Christmas Boxing Day sales. Assessments remained anecdotal on Friday night so we’ll await tonight’s figures to see whether US retailers are expecting a prosperous Christmas. It will be back to business tonight through to year-end, which for most is fiscal year-end, with Christmas Day a mere one-day distraction.

On the bottom of the planet, the absence of any apparent Santa Rally impetus means we enter December with growing disinterest as schools prepare to break for the summer and Bridge Street ramps up the Christmas party circuit.

The US dollar index pushed up 0.1% to 80.65 on Friday night while gold added US$8.50 to US$1252.10/oz. The Aussie is 0.2% higher at US$0.9132.

Base metals mostly posted smallish moves to the upside while spot iron ore was unchanged at US$136.40/t.

A cold snap across the US helped to push up natural gas prices in particular, but also West Texas crude by US42c to US$92.72/bbl. Brent fell US$1.12 to US$109.69/bbl to close at least some of the large gap which has once again opened up over WTI.

The SPI Overnight fell 9 points.

Yesterday Beijing released China’s official manufacturing PMI for November which showed 51.4, unchanged from October. The result nevertheless beat estimates of 51.2.

Today will see HSBC roll out its equivalent Chinese PMI, while Australia, the eurozone, UK and US will also provide PMI releases. Tomorrow Beijing will deliver the official China service sector PMI while the others will follow on Wednesday.

The US will catch up on economic releases from an abbreviated week last week. Aside from the PMIs, tonight brings construction spending, tomorrow vehicle sales, and Wednesday new home sales, the trade balance, the Fed Beige Book and the ADP private sector jobs numbers for November. Thursday it's chain store sales and factory orders and Friday brings the Michigan Uni consumer sentiment measure and the all-important non-farm payrolls data.

After which the whole tapering debate will fire up once more. Yawn.

The eurozone will revise its first estimate of September quarter GDP on Wednesday and on Thursday both the ECB and Bank of England hold policy meetings.

It’s a big week for Australian data. Today sees building approvals, the TD Securities inflation gauge, the RP Data-Rismark house price index, the PMI, and September quarter company profits and inventories. Tuesday it's retail sales along with the September quarter current account and net export numbers. The RBA will hold a policy meeting at which no one is expecting a rate change, particularly now the Aussie has fallen back a few cents in a hurry on Glenn Stevens' intervention threat.

On Wednesday it’s the services PMI and the September quarter GDP. The market is expecting 0.7% growth for an unchanged annual rate of 2.6%.

Thursday brings the trade balance and Friday the construction PMI.  

On Friday the ASX will announce pending quarterly changes (promotions and relegations) to the various ASX/S&P stock indices.

If one is looking for an explanation for latent sogginess on Bridge Street these past few sessions, aside from a lack of catalysts and some pretty soul-destroying profit warnings, one might be safe to assume fund managers have been topping up the cash coffers ready for what is, in Australian terms, a fairly remarkable week for IPOs (initial public offerings) this week.

Today sees the listing of PS&C Ltd ((PSZ)), tomorrow Industria RBT Fund ((IDR)) and on Wednesday it's Dick Smith Holdings ((DSH)). Both LifeHealthcare Group ((LHC)) and Veda Group ((VED)) list on Thursday before the big one on Friday, Nine Entertainment ((NEC)).

IPOs aside, the large cap AGM season is now all but behind us, bar a couple stragglers. TPG Telecom ((TPM)) holds its meeting on Wednesday, Nufarm ((NUF)) on Thursday and BT Investment Management ((BTT)) on Friday. Brambles ((BXB)) will hold an extraordinary general meeting on Tuesday to discuss the proposed demerger, while Metcash ((MTS)) will report its interim result today.

Santos ((STO)) and Sydney Airport ((SYD)) will both hold investor days on Wednesday.

Rudi will appear on Sky Business today at 11.15am, on Wednesday at 5.30pm and on Thursday at noon and again between 7-8pm for the Switzer Report.
 

For further global economic release dates and local company events please refer to the FNArena Calendar.

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