Weekly Reports | Aug 29 2014
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 good news is next week sees an end to the local results season. Exhausted analysts, brokers and FNArena reporters can all finally have a rest. The bad news is we’ll go into next week with the shadow of the Russian Bear hanging over us.
By next week we may have more sanctions being applied against Russia, as Putin moves more troops into the Ukraine and tries to tell us all is cool. The EU is meeting this weekend and Angela Merkel has already flagged a step-up, knowing full well her own country will suffer equally from any trade restrictions.
The potential impact on the global economy will be a point of discussion as a raft of global economic data is rolled out next week. Monday it’s manufacturing PMIs from Australia, Japan, China, the eurozone and UK, and Wednesday sees the equivalent round of service sector PMIs.
It’s the Labor Day long weekend in the US so no markets on Monday, shifting the US PMIs to Tuesday and Thursday. Labor Day signals the end of the US summer holidays and volumes on exchanges should start to pick up again thereafter. Just time, we might note, for the historically most nervous two months of the trading year – September and October.
It’s also jobs week in the US, beginning with the private sector report on Wednesday followed by non-farm payrolls on Friday. Throughout the shortened week the US will see construction spending, factory orders, vehicle sales, chain store sales, the trade balance and the Fed Beige Book.
Tonight brings a flash estimate of the eurozone’s August CPI and next Thursday the ECB will meet, in the wake of Draghi’s Jackson Hole QE teaser and possible trade sanction impositions.
It’s a big week for Australia on the economic front as well.
Monday sees June quarter company profits and inventories, Tuesday the current account, and Wednesday the GDP. July building approvals and retail sales data are also due, along with the PMIs. The RBA will meet on Tuesday but not change its policy.
While result season will be a memory by next week, the ex-divs start to flow more steadily. Ex-div dates are nevertheless spread fairly evenly across the month, but will mathematically impact on indices.
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