Weekly Reports | Mar 02 2012
By Greg Peel
We can now call the Australian six-monthly reporting season officially over, albeit there are a few stragglers who will report later this month, including the department stores. All up the season has proven more disappointing than encouraging as various trends have continued to play out: the depressing Aussie dollar, the weak consumer, and cost increases and delays for the resources sector. Perhaps most disturbing has been a trend of more dividend cuts than increases.
Attention now turns to next week's local December quarter GDP result, due on Wednesday. Component quarterly data leading into the result have also been weaker than expected, meaning downside risk to current 0.7% growth estimates. On Monday we see fourth quarter business indicators and on Tuesday the current account, which includes the quarterly terms of trade.
The RBA will nevertheless make a rate decision on the Tuesday ahead of the GDP result. There is little evidence at this point that another cut will be forthcoming without any further global disturbances.
Monday will see the global round of service sector PMIs, albeit China's will be released tomorrow, as is its wont. Otherwise Australia, the eurozone, UK and US will all report. Locally we'll also see ANZ job ads, unemployment, building approvals and the January trade balance over the week.
It's a quiet week in the US but it is an unemployment week, with the private sector number out on Wednesday and official non-farm payrolls on Friday. Factory orders, wholesale trade and the trade balance will also be released.
The Bank of England will make a rate decision on Thursday, and with a new round of QE underway will leave its rate on hold, as will the ECB on the same night, with the LTRO just completed. China will provide a monthly data dump on Friday of inflation retail sales and industrial production numbers.
The local earnings season may now be over, but we will move into a more crowded ex-dividend phase next week, with Monday in particular ready to strip a few points off the index.
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.
