FYI | Jan 29 2007
By Greg Peel
Let’s get Australia out of the way first.
Today sees the release of the NAB business confidence survey for the fourth quarter and tomorrow the December monthly business survey. We have December private credit and new home sales and January skilled vacancies on Wednesday and the RBA commodity price index for January on Thursday. Friday is the all important balance of trade.
What happens to the Aussie dollar in the short term will be a factor of the trade balance and wherever the US dollar ends up after its week of economic data.
Tomorrow night sees US consumer confidence and the Fed will meet. Wednesday night the Fed will likely leave rates unchanged ahead of the fourth quarter GDP, January employment, employment cost and construction spending. Thursday we get jobless claims, personal income, personal spending, pending homes sales and the ISM manufacturing index.
Friday tops off the week with US non-farm payrolls, unemployment, average wages, factory orders and the University of Michigan index.
If we don’t have some indication of how the US economy is performing from that lot, then we never will. This will in turn affect the currencies and precious and base metal prices.
For New Zealand, Wednesday’s balance of trade will be the highlight.
Back in Australia, the first trickle of interim or full year profit reports will turn into a flood next month. Highlights this week are Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) on Wednesday and Rio Tinto (RIO) on Thursday. AWB (AWB) will entertain us with its result on Thursday. Rinker (RIN) will put in its quarterly on Thursday as well.
Strap yourself in.