Weekly Reports | Sep 24 2010
By Greg Peel
Once we get past new home sales and durable goods orders in the US tonight the highlight of next week will be the final revision of the US second quarter GDP. Expectations are that the result will be unchanged from the previous 1.6% estimate but a worse result may just tip over a rather wobbly Wall Street. To date it's been the best September since the 1930s so it has to be some downside risk.
Meanwhile sovereign debt rumblings continue with Ireland firmly in the spotlight now, taking a bit of the heat off the continental basket cases. The market is worried Ireland may need to stick its hand out and its credit default swaps are now at the highest spreads in history, but realistically the ECB and IMF have set up their emergency fund for exactly this outcome and Ireland was the first eurozone country to hit trouble even before Lehman bit the dust. It's an ongoing saga but as suggested, markets are a bit nervous after the decent rally.
Next week in the US will also see the Chicago Fed national activity index and regional PMI, the Case-Shiller house price index and the Conference Board consumer confidence measure. Come Friday, it's global PMI day with all of Australia, China, the UK, eurozone and US reporting manufacturing data.
It's otherwise relatively quiet economically in Australia with the exception of Thursday, which sees the latest building approval and private sector credit numbers. A strong result in the latter in particular will have economists all talking October rate rise.
There are still a few stocks to go ex-div in Australia next week and the AGM season continues to hot up, albeit mostly smaller companies at this stage.
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.
