Next Week At A Glance

This story features KMD BRANDS LIMITED, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: KMD

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

Once we get through tonight’s “quadruple witching” expiry in the US, next week will see a return to focus on economic data as Wall Street now looks ahead to when the Fed’s rate cycle may finally turn. We are already beginning to see signs of improvement in the most recent data, offsetting the hit taken in many series as a result of the crippling weather in January and February. Wall Street will be looking for signs the “weather excuse” was justified.

And there will be plenty of data points to thus consider next week. We’ll see a flash reading for both the manufacturing and service sector PMIs, two house price indices, new and pending home sales, the Richmond Fed manufacturing index, durable goods, personal income and spending, two measures of consumer confidence and, finally, another revision of the December quarter GDP result.

Monday is also flash day for the Chinese (HSBC) and eurozone manufacturing PMIs.

It’s a quiet week economically in Australia. On the stock market we’ll see the quarterly expiry of stock options on Thursday while off-season earnings results will be delivered by Kathmandu ((KMD)), Nufarm ((NUF)) and Sigma Pharmaceutical ((SIP)).

It must not go unnoticed that the situation with regard Russia’s annexation of Crimea appears to have heated up outside the region itself, with the diplomatic barbs and tit-for-tat sanctions increasing in intensity. But inside the region the vast majority of Crimeans seem very happy to now be Russian again, while Ukraine has backed off and conceded the loss. Assuming Putin is not intending to annexe anymore of the Ukraine or anywhere else for that matter (the Lithuanians have become anxious), then presumably the issue will be left simply to perfunctory diplomatic scolding and global financial markets can get on with life.

Presumably.
 

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