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

The finance ministers and central bank representatives of the G20 will sit down in Moscow tonight for a two-day meeting and the hot agenda topic is anticipated to be the Currency War. Last night’s woeful eurozone GDP data only serves to highlight the dangers of the War, with QE3 and now concerted efforts to devalue the yen helping to artificially push up the euro and thus undermine any attempts to reboot Europe’s significant export sector and lift the zone out of recession.

Ironically, yesterday’s similarly weak Japanese GDP was put down to loss of demand in, among other regions, Europe, thus encouraging the government’s attempts to devalue the yen to make Japanese exports cheaper. A Currency War is a war in which there can be no victor.

It’s a long weekend in the US with markets closed for the Presidents’ Day holiday on Monday, while China will also take its last New Year’s day off on Monday. Thereafter it’s a housing data week in the US, with housing sentiment, housing starts and existing home sale releases on the agenda. It’s also inflation week, with PPI and CPI data due, and the minutes of the last Fed meeting will be released on Wednesday.

Hopefully the cold northern weather won’t deter the flashers, with early estimations for the Chinese, eurozone and US manufacturing PMIs due on Thursday.

Following on from the weak GDP data, Germany will be in the frame next week with the release of investor and business sentiment surveys and the trade balance.

The highlight of Australia’s economic week will be the release of the RBA minutes on Tuesday, in which the board can further explain why it didn’t cut this month. On Friday the RBA governor will front parliamentarians for a regular testimony.

The real action Downunder will be the ongoing earnings season, which slips up into third gear next week. BHP Billiton ((BHP)) will be in there, as will Woodside ((WPL)), Santos ((STO)) and AMP ((AMP)), but seriously there are just too many releases due from which to list highlights.

To date, the local earnings season has been one of net upside surprise, helping the ASX 200 through the 5000 barrier. We’ll be getting into the thick of it next week and learning whether or not early signs prove but an aberration.
 

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