Next Week At A Glance

This story features MYER HOLDINGS LIMITED, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: MYR

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.

By Greg Peel

We've now had our second step-jump response with regard to Europe. The first came after ECB president Mario Draghi declared at the previous ECB meeting that he would do “whatever it takes”, and the second came after last night's latest meeting in which Draghi pledged to make “unlimited bond purchases” if needed. There is a lot of faith now “baked in” that there is light at the end of the tunnel for Europe.

The latest plan involves the ECB purchasing distressed eurozone bonds on the secondary market, with the ESM buying them in the primary market. The sheer existence of the ESM is nevertheless under a legal cloud, which presumably will be resolved, one way or the other, by the German court ruling on Wednesday night. An optimistic market is clearly backing a positive ruling.

Attention then turns to the Fed, which meets on Thursday night. The central bank will also update its quarterly forecasts at that point and Ben Bernanke will hold one of his four policy press conferences per year. Judging by Bernanke's Jackson Hole rhetoric, something new will be announced next Thursday, if not full-blown QE3. Tonight we will see the August jobs figures in the US, but it is assumed that one swallow will be too late to save a summer, even if the result is very positive. Then again, Bernanke might stall. An optimistic market would be disappointed.

Before all of this, attention will focus on the elephant in the room – China, and its rapidly slowing economy. The August “data dump” of Chinese inflation, industrial production and retail sales numbers is expected on Sunday. And China's August trade balance is due on Monday.

That number will balance nicely against today's release of Australia' trade balance, albeit ours is still catching up with July.

Next week Australia will also see housing finance and investment lending data, the NAB business and Westpac consumer confidence surveys, and an RBA Bulletin. It's a quiet week for US data until we get to Friday, which will feature CPI, industrial production and retail sales data. By then, the Fed will have announced its decision.

On the local stock front, we will see another solid round of stocks going ex-dividend next week, with the bulk occurring on Monday. We will also see earnings results from stragglers Myer ((MYR)), Sigma Pharmaceutical ((SIP)) and BC Iron ((BCI)).

But next week belongs to the central banks (including, possibly, the PBoC).

Click to view our Glossary of Financial Terms