Week ahead: Earnings season climax

Here are the week’s key events: 

Earnings season on Wall Street climaxes this week with the last major run of releases; Ford, Disney and Alibaba among the companies set to report. The Reserve Bank of Australia should be sounding less hawkish after inflation declined more than expected last week. And Chinese inflation data will show whether prices are starting to rise or if deflation is still the order of the day. 

Monday  

The week kicks off with the Caixin services PMI from China setting the tone for the Asian session. This has been a relative bright spot in the China economic data landscape. A month ago, it recorded the 13th straight month of expansion in services activity and the strongest pace since last September. Then it’s the US turn with the ISM services PMI. This also showed economic activity in the services sector expanded in December, the 12th consecutive month of growth, albeit the rate of expansion cooled somewhat from the previous month. 

Earnings: Caterpillar (CAT), Estee Lauder (EL), McDonald’s (MCD), Palantir (PLTR) 

Tuesday  

Falling inflation helped the Australian equity market hit a record high last week, but what does it mean for the country’s central bank? The Reserve Bank of Australia is expected to hold firm on rates but softer inflation points to policymakers being able to look at cuts later in the year. There were substantial declines for headline and core inflation measures in the fourth quarter, with the headline CPI down to 4.1% vs 4.3% expected and the December print at 3.4% vs 3.7% anticipated. That has left markets betting on the RBA to start cutting rates sooner than they might have done. 

Earnings: Amgen (AMGN), Eli Lilly (LLY), Spotify (SPOT), Ford (F), Gilead (GILD), MicroStrategy (MSTR) 

Wednesday  

There is a smattering of economic data but hardly anything top-tier. German industrial production figures, a 10yr bond auction and the Bank of England’s monetary policy report hearings make for slim pickings. More on the earnings front of note – Uber flies the flag for disruptive consumer tech; we get a look at whether Disney is catching up with Netflix and the embattled Alibaba updates the market after founder Jack Ma bought more stock. 

Earnings: Alibaba (BABA), ARM Holdings (ARM), PayPal (PYPL), The Walt Disney Co (DIS), Uber Technologies (UBER) 

Thursday  

Chinese CPI is the main event during the Asian session. Outright deflation has dogged the Chinese economy lately – consumer prices fell 0.5% year on year in November, the steepest decline in three years as it struggled to combat slack domestic demand. Producer prices meanwhile slumped 3%, accelerating from a 2.6% drop in November and have been negative for 14 straight months. Later on, watch for the weekly unemployment claims figures from the US and a 30yr Treasury auction. 

Earnings:  Pinterest (PINS), Philip Morris (PM),  

Friday  

It’s a relatively quiet end to the week, though perhaps not lacking any volatility. The RBNZ statement of intent provides the only focus for the Asian session. In Europe we see the final German CPI inflation data for January and industrial production figures from Italy. In North America, there is no US data so Canadian employment figures provide some interest. 

Earnings:  PepsiCo (PEP)