2007-08 Australian profit reports will be the big focus for investors with around 65 major companies due to report this week, including BHP Billiton, BlueScope, Boral, Oil Search, Coca Cola Amatil, Qantas, QBE and Wesfarmers. 80 are due to report the following week and you can bet that the quality of those reports (and some of this week's) will be terrible.
While important as BHP Billiton will be, the result the market is fearing is the interim report from struggling financial engineer, Babcock and Brown.
Dollar up, gold down sharply: another week, another five days of readjustment as global recession fears grip investors.
Gold finished below $US 800, finishing the biggest weekly slide for the metal in a quarter of a century as punters, speculators and anyone else just went off the metal big time.
So what lies ahead this week: June 30 profits here, some quarterly earnings in the US, a few statistics in the US and more speculation about Australian interest rates.
The market is down 9 despite the futures being up 20 this morning. Yesterday's enthusiasm for resources has disappeared as the US dollar goes up and commodities prices go down again. Resources down 1.8%. Financials up 0.6% following the lead from financials in the US. Property up 1.6%.
Suddenly the spectre of inflation no longer hangs over the world: it's gone, banished by the reversal in sentiment in commodity and financial markets.
