FYI | Oct 07 2007
By Rudi Filapek-Vandyck
Westpac economists believe it won’t be long before investors will start zooming in on inflation in Australia but the next official data release isn’t until October 25 so there’s plenty of time to digest other factors and releases in the meantime.
On Tuesday Alcoa kicks of the second quarter results season in the US. Now that the September nonfarm payrolls have not disappointed, it would seem but logical that company earnings will land into the limelight again.
But there will be plenty of economic data as well to keep investors and strategists glued to their pc screens this week. Tuesday sees the official release of the minutes of the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting and this means we will all become a little wiser about why official interest rates in the US went down by 50 basis points last month.
The next set of data that can potentially shock the market either way is scheduled for Thursday with releases of the August trade balance, the September import prices, the weekly initial jobless claims and the chain store sales growth for September.
But the most important day of the coming week, as far as economic data are concerned, is likely to be Friday again with scheduled releases of September producer prices, September retail sales, a measurement of consumer sentiment in October, while Bernanke and other Fed officials will speak at a conference in Dallas.
The Bank of Japan meets on Thursday but that is widely anticipated as being the next non-event on the calendar. In Australia Citi economists are now anticipating the Reserve Bank may have to raise interest rates twice in the next six months or so and investors will be kept up to date with the release of the ANZ job ads for September on Monday, the NAB business survey for September on Tuesday and housing finance data for August and the Westpac–MI Consumer Sentiment update for October.
It is bound to get more interesting when the RBS releases the employment data for September while the Melbourne Institute reveals the latest inflationary expectations (see opening paragraph of this story) as well as expectations regarding unemployment. The latter set of data is gathered and analysed in conjunction with Westpac.
In Europe things get more interesting from Thursday onwards as well with the scheduled releases of the ECB monthly report and the final GDP for Q2. On Friday the industrial production for August is published.
On the corporate front all eyes will turn to US earnings, as mentioned above. In Australia the calendar is dominated by AGMs and dividend payouts – see the FNArena calendar on our website for more details.
Monday is a public holiday in the US (Columbus Day) but share markets are open. The fixed interest market will be closed.
