Next Week At A Glance

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This story features NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LIMITED, and other companies.
For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: NAB
The company is included in ASX20, ASX50, ASX100, ASX200, ASX300 and ALL-ORDS

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 last full trading week before Christmas will likely be a busy one. Aside from the volatility we’re already currently experiencing in markets, the potential for more swings and roundabouts will be provided by futures and options expiry days both locally and in the US, and by end of quarter (and for many fund managers, end of financial year) window-dressing.

As many a fund manager/trader is paid their annual bonus based on a calendar year, there will be a bias to the upside as participants try to push the market back to offset recent falls, nevertheless all in the context of whatever the world is set to throw up at us next week. Options market-makers with short positions around strike prices will forced to buy and sell back and forward. Anything could happen, and just might.

We will also see a lot of global economic data crammed into this week and the first two days of next week before Christmas breaks begin.

The US will see housing sentiment and housing starts, industrial production, inflation, flash estimates of December manufacturing and service sector PMIs, leading economic indicators, and the Empire State and Philadelphia Fed manufacturing indices. On Wednesday night the Fed will release its last policy statement for the year and Janet Yellen will hold her last press conference for the year. Friday will see the quarterly “quadruple witching” futures and options expiry.

Japan will release its December quarter Tankan Survey next week and publish trade data before the Bank of Japan meets at week’s end.

Japan will also participate in a round of flash estimates of December manufacturing PMIs which includes China, the eurozone and US. The eurozone will also confirm its monthly inflation number and trade balance and the ZEW investor sentiment and German IFO business sentiment indicators are both due.

New Zealand will release its September quarter GDP result.

It’s a quiet week economically in Australia, featuring the release of the RBA minutes on Tuesday and the latest RBA Bulletin on Thursday.

On the local stock front, there’ll be a late spurt of AGMs, with the highlight being the double-whammy of National Bank ((NAB)) and ANZ Bank ((ANZ)) on Thursday. Thursday also sees the aforementioned futures and options expiry. Because of Christmas, the December quarter expiry lumps all of stock and index options and futures and futures options on the one day when they’re usually split across two weeks. It’s our own “quadruple witching”.

On Friday the S&P/ASX indices will rebalance at the close of trade, meaning selected stocks will be included in and others relegated from the various indices, including the ASX200.

Please note, FNArena will close full service for Christmas after December 23 and reopen on January 14. The website will nevertheless remain fully accessible.
 

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