Australia Weekly Market Outlook

A solid outcome in terms of business investment plans would add to recent robust data for housing finance, business and consumer confidence and employment in supporting the case for another 0.25% interest rate hike from the RBA when it next meets on December 1.

Business investment figures out Thursday and the important construction work done data the day before, will tell us how solid the returning resources boom has become, and if the emerging rebound in home construction is having an impact on the wider construction sector.

Both sets of data form an important part of the September quarter national accounts, which would normally be out next week on Wednesday, a day after the RBA board meeting.

But because the Australian Bureau of Statistics is reworking the national accounts, they now won't be out until December 15, two weeks later than normal.

They were due to be released on Christmas Eve, December 24, according to a statement in the June quarter national accounts released in early September. That has now been brought forward.

The week also sees a speech by RBA Deputy Governor, Ric Battelino. He speaks Wednesday at a housing industry forum in Melbourne.

(By the way RBA Governor, Glenn Stevens, will make his third speech in four months on December 8 in Sydney when he talks about the economic prospects for 2008.)

There will be more AGMs this week. They will include Dominion Mining, BHP Billiton, IiNet, Perilya, Resolute Mining, Mortgage Choice, Ramsay Healthcare, Premier Investments, Clover Corp., OrotonGroup, Monodelphous Group, Brickworks, Patties Foods, Metals X, Centrebet, Neptune Marine, Paladin Energy, Cooper Energy, Sipa Resources, Iron Road, Australian Vintage, Village Roadshow, Coffey International, Brandrill, Farm Pride, Salmat, Mermaid Marine, Virgin Blue, Beach Petroleum, Woolworths, New Hope, Hedley Leisure, Euroz Corp., Linc Energy, Flexigroup, FKP Property, Centennial Coal, Count Financial, Run Corp, Avoca Resources, Boom Logistics, Hunter Hall, Sunland, Duet and Macmahon Holdings.

Interim results from Programmed Maintenance Services.

In the US it will be a big week for economic releases with data for consumer confidence, home sales, house prices and durable goods orders all due for release, plus the start of the post-Thanksgiving sales on Friday night, our time (many chains and shops are opening at midnight on Thursday, US time).

And the big figure will be the second estimate on third quarter GDP.

Like last week's new homes sales figures which showed a sharp 10.6% fall, this week's data for home sales will show a fall because of the uncertainty around the home buyers tax credit and weakening consumer confidence (which is likely to be soft as a result of the recent news that unemployment has increased to 10.2% last month).

Tuesday sees the Case Schiller home price Index for September.

The revised GDP data is likely to see September quarter growth cut from an initially reported 3.5% annualized rate to around 2.7% annualized.

That's from around 0.9% quarter on quarter to around 0.7%. Not serious, but a sign of the softness in the wider US economy, recovery or no recovery.

Minutes from the Fed's last meeting will be released and will help us better understand the thinking behind the change of wording in that part of the post meeting that specified the factors that would help keep interest rates at their current record lows "for an extended period of time".

Japanese data for employment, retail sales and inflation will also be released and won't be good with the government late last week admitting that the economy is now in the grip of deflation.