A very active data and news flow agenda coming up in the Asian timezone today

2100 GMT - New Zealand - ANZ Job Ads for February

2145 GMT - New Zealand - Q4 terms of trade

  • expected +0.5% q/q, prior +0.7% q/q (to a new all time high on better export commodity prices and lower prices for imports ... win-win!)

2200 GMT - Australia manufacturing PMI for February - the CBA / Markit Manufacturing PMI

  • prior 55.4

2230 GMT - Another Australian manufacturing PMI for February - the Australian Industry Group performance of Manufacturing Index

  • prior was 58.7

2300 GMT - Australia - CoreLogic house prices for February

  • prior -0.5% m/m

2350 - Japan - International securities flows for the week ended February 23

2350 - Japan - Q4 Capex

  • Capital Spending y/y for Q4, expected is +3.0%, prior was +4.2%
  • Capital Spending excluding software y/y for Q4, expected is +2.7%, prior was +4.3%
  • Company profits for Q4, prior was +5.5%
  • Company sales for Q4, prior was +4.8%

There are expectations of higher business investment particularly in service industries to address labour shortages, while strong exports argue for better capex at manufacturers too. The data today is for the October - December quarter, prior to the big surge in the yen, this may be a negative for capex in Q1 of 2018 but not in today's data ... we'll see.

0030 GMT - Australia - Q4 capex

  • The Private Capital Expenditure survey from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the October - December quarter.

I posted a preview of this yesterday, here:

and will have more to come on this separately

0030 GMT - Japan - Markit / Nikkei Manufacturing PMI for February (final)

  • The flash result is here from last week, it showed a slowing, coming in at 54.0 from January's 54.8.
  • Output and new orders both grew, but at their slowest pace since October 2017, while employment growth accelerated to an 11-year high.

0130 GMT - Bank of Japan policy board member Goushi Kataoka speaking (at a meeting with business leaders in Okayama). Kataoka has been a dissenter at BOJ meetings, calling for even more easing efforts to accelerate movement towards the bank's 2% inflation target.

0145 GMT - China (private survey) manufacturing PMI

Caixin / Markit Manufacturing PMI

  • expected 51.3, prior 51.5

Yesterday we got the official PMIs:

Note the surveys for the official PMIs are different surveys to this private PMI. The Caixin/Markit Manufacturing PMI tends to focus more on small and mid-sized Chinese firms while the official PMIs include more larger, state-backed firms.

There is some data due later in the session from Japan - consumer confidence, vehicle sales and such.

And that, ladies and gentlemen is that for the first day of the month here in Asia.