Next Week At A Glance

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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

US jobs numbers are always important, and tonight's is even more so being right before the presidential election. The big drop to 7.8% unemployment last month evoked howls of “rigged!” from the Republican camp so Obama may be hoping for another drop but not too big a drop.

Consensus forecasts nevertheless have a tick up to 7.9%, with 125,000 jobs being added. Given the unemployment rate is as much about participation as actual jobs, it's always a bit of a guess and giggle. One thing we can assume is a lot of Sandy-forced layoffs showing up in the next number.

By that time we should have a returned or new president, assuming it's not so close as to spark ludicrous “hanging chad” arguments which eventually decide a winner in court. The election is on Tuesday night our time so the result will be met with many hangovers downunder. Tuesday is Melbourne Cup day and a holiday in Victoria. The rest of the country will head to lunch.

Cup Day also means RBA day and the jury is still out. China seems like it might just be on the turn which could encourage the central bank to hold off for now, given a rate cut last month, but domestic economy has done nothing to suggest it doesn't need further assistance. What's more MYEFO has ensured even more politically-driven fiscal tightening from the self-serving, card-carrying morons in Canberra hellbent on winning an election at the expense of every man, woman and child in this country. Maybe Stevens will simply be forced to play counterbalance, just as Bernanke has to keep an eye on the US fiscal cliff.

It's otherwise a bit of a data-laden week next week on the local front, with tomorrow bringing the official Chinese services PMI and Monday the HSBC equivalent, along with service PMIs from Australia, the UK and US. During the week other Australian releases include the trade balance, retails sales, job ads, house prices and our own unemployment numbers. Friday will see the monthly Chinese “data dump”.

It's a quieter week in the US aside from the service PMI, the election, and the trade balance release.

An EU leaders meeting will be held from this Sunday but no one is expecting a sudden Spanish bail-out, nor anything else of much import.

On the local stock front, the resource sector production report season has now run its course but the AGM bus will keep chugging along. We'll also see a full-year result from Westpac ((WBC)) and a quarterly update from CommBank ((CBA)).

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