Earnings week

       ECONOMIC data will take a backseat to corporate earnings. Some of the companies expected to release their quarterly earnings are Gas Malaysia Bhd, Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd, S P Setia Bhd, Berjaya Food Bhd, Dialog Group Bhd, Malakoff Corp Bhd and Innature Bhd.

       The corporate earnings reported so far have been more hits than misses.

       Meanwhile, Bank Negara is expected to release the international reserves as at Aug 13 on Friday.

       Malakoff logo

       The international reserves of Bank Negara amounted to US$111.1bil (RM471bil) as of July 31. The reserves position is sufficient to finance 8.1 months of retained imports and is 1.1 times total short-term external debt.

       GDP reports

       JAPAN and Thailand are expected to announce their second quarter (Q2) gross domestic product (GDP) today.

       Bloomberg estimates that Thailand’s Q2 GDP is likely to contract 1.2% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) and a 6.4% growth year-on-year.

       It estimates that Japan’s Q2 GDP will grow 0.5% q-o-q seasonally adjusted annual rate.

       Japan car production

       According to ING, the resurgent Covid-19 cases and tighter restrictions to break the infection chain have probably stalled the recovery in both the economies in the last quarter.

       ING said Japan is on the verge of falling into recession after it contracted 1% quarter-on-quarter in the Q1.

       The research house said the same applied to the Thai economy, which at 0.2% q-o-q barely grew in Q1 and likely contracted as much as -2.7% q-o-q in Q2.

       Despite this, ING said low base effects swung their year-on-year growth rates back into positive territory after more than a year of negative readings.

       China data dump

       China’s July industrial output, retail sales figures, and fixed asset investment are due this week. In addition, China will also announce its August one-year and five-year loan prime rate (LPR) fixings on Friday.

       A Bloomberg poll of 17 economists showed both one-year LPR and five-year LPR are expected to be unchanged at 3.85% and 4.65% respectively.

       UOB Global Economics and Markets Research shared the same view although it said the People’s Bank of China might need to cut the Reserve Requirement Ratio further to pump more liquidity back into the system with another 3.75 trillion yuan of the medium lending facility maturing in the rest of 2021.

       IHS Markit said China’s services sector was shown to have rebounded in July according to the Caixin China General Services PMI, although a slowdown is to be expected into August amid the fresh Covid-19 wave.

       It added that industrial production will be watched after the July trade data release, which was regarded to be resilient but missed the consensus.

       The Caixin China General Manufacturing PMI earlier revealed that output growth slowed amid a slight drop in new orders in July.

       FOMC meeting minutes

       The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting minutes will be released this week.

       Fed building

       IHS Markit said the minutes could offer some clues on the US Federal Reserve (Fed) thoughts ahead of the Aug 26-28 Jackson Hole policy symposium, where more details on tapering and the Fed’s assessment of the US economic situation may be shared.