Weekly Reports | Mar 04 2011
By Greg Peel
The US employment report will be the focus of attention tonight coming off the back of a strong ADP report and a drop in weekly jobless claims. Expectations are for 200,000 new jobs to be added but optimistic commentators are looking for “upside surprise”. Wall Street already rallied on this expectation last night, so a good number may not evoke too much more.
Turning to next week, it's a quieter one on the US economic front. Consumer credit, wholesale trade, the trade balance and monthly Treasury budget are the highlights ahead of Friday, on which the important retail sales number is released along with business inventories and the fortnightly consumer sentiment gauge.
In Australia, it's time for the bank economists to take the limelight as we see the ANZ job ads survey, the NAB business conditions survey and the Westpac consumer confidence survey all released. TD Securities will also post its monthly inflation gauge. And we'll have housing finance ahead of the monthly employment numbers on Thursday. RBA governor Glenn Stevens will be making a speech on the Wednesday.
It's also the week for the regular round of monthly Chinese data, with inflation now fully in the frame as the determinant of monetary policy measures. There are otherwise clear signs of slowing growth in China as noted by this week's PMI data. On Thursday, the trade balance is released and on Friday we see the CPI, PPI, industrial production, fixed investment and retail sales.
The Bank of England will make a rate decision on Thursday. Recent BoE rhetoric watered down inflation fears so it is likely the UK cash rate will remain on 0.5%, but the ECB has become more hawkish and it is probably only a matter of time for the BoE as well. Subsequent currency strength across the pond is placing downward pressure on the US dollar.
The RBNZ will also make a rate decision on Thursday in the wake of the Christchurch tragedy.
And of course we have no idea what might happen in North Africa or the Middle East.
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.
