The video clips below provide a handy summary of the reports expected on the economic, financial and corporate front around the globe during the week ahead.

US: Working in Washington The Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its analysis of the Senate’s health-care compromise, with Democrats looking for a vote before the end of the year. There are also a number of tech companies reporting earnings.

Europe: Cadbury and H&M in focus Cadbury reacts to Kraft offer, H&M reports sales and Philips may unveil guidance next week.

Asia: Central banks in action Traders will pay close attention to Japan’s Tankan survey next week, as well as to policy-meeting minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia.

...

(click on pictures for better viewing)

It is indeed an old adage that while goods things are to be preferred over bad things it is possible to get too much of the former. Looking at recent comments from the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia it is not difficult to imagine how these, albeit old and worn, pearls of wisdom may well have inspired Mr. Stevens in his effort to tiptoe the thigthrope between signalling the intention to raise rates into an expected economic recovery on the one side and trying to prevent the Aussie shoot of on helium into the sun with wings of wax on the other.

(quote Bloomberg)

Australia’s central bank Governor Glenn Stevens signaled a surge in the nation’s currency to near parity with the U.S. dollar has given him scope to slow the pace of future

...

A Auction is the best way for buyers to know they are purchasing a property for its true market value. However, the auction process itself can be a little intimidating for some buyers, so it’s advised to go into the auction with a firm idea of what you are willing to pay for the property in question and seek the advice of a professional. B Buyers Agents work on your behalf, as a buyer, to find you the perfect property and negotiate to achieve the perfect price. Relationships with real estate agents ensure that your buyer’s agent has access to properties that are fresh on the market and sometimes have not even been advertised yet. C Conveyancing is the process by which real property is legally transferred from one person to another. It involves gathering information concerning a property and preparing the documents for the transference of the property. Remember to ask your solicitor ...

(click on graphs for better viewing; sorry for lack of x-axis formatting)

Nothing good lasts forever, or so at least many would have us believe. I shall neatly leave it aside of whether this is true in a general sense but merely note that it appears that we are moving closer to some form of another of crunch here. And my rationale you ask? Well, let me simply note that it appears, despite the fact one would believe that investors' and punters' should know better, that we are headed right back into the same dead end as we did the last time the Dollar was canooled with the Euro taking center stage. Of course, this is not only a Euro story even if it may appear so and in this sense the current environment once again shows us the very real obstacles which exist in terms of correcting global rebalancing

...

COFCO, the major shareholder of the Chinese dairy company Mengniu, has announced that Mengniu's manufacturing base in the southwestern area of China has been completed and put into production. COFCO told local media that construction of Mengniu's first manufacturing base in the southwestern area and its 24th base in China, its Mengniu Meishan plant, started in [...]

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZckZ-8naz0/Ss4gP1iqayI/AAAAAAAAC38/NikeELuPZUg/s1600-h/NZX+EWA.JPG"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 123px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZckZ-8naz0/Ss4gP1iqayI/AAAAAAAAC38/NikeELuPZUg/s320/NZX+EWA.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390281260451654434" border="0" //aAs a follow on to this morning one reader noted that iShares Australia can be a proxy for New Zealand.br /br /I would disagree. The chart posted in one year but if you play around with other time periods I believe you will see what I see which is that EWA, which several clients own, is quite a bit more volatile than the NZ 50 which is the benchmark index for New Zealand.br /br /Despite the two often being lumped together the economies are quite different. New Zealand doesn't really have much in the ground that it mines and then exports to other countries. It is more centered on farming, animals and animal byproducts (like milk exports to China). Australia has a fair bit of wheat but ...

I am not an ardent watcher of the Australian economy so I shall leave it neatly to the side of whether this was expected or, Bloomberg so famously puts it, unexpected.

Australia’s central bank unexpectedly raised its benchmark interest rate from a 49-year low and signaled further increases in coming months amid signs the economy is strengthening. Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens increased the overnight cash rate target to 3.25 percent from 3 percent in Sydney today. Only one of 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast today’s move. The rest predicted no change.

The local currency jumped as Australia became the first Group of 20 nation to raise borrowing costs since the start of the global financial crisis more than a year ago. Rising job vacancies, retail sales and

...

At its meeting today, the Board decided to raise the cash rate by 25 basis points to 3.25 per cent, effective 7 October 2009. The global economy is resuming growth. With economic policy settings likely to remain expansionary for some time, the recovery will likely continue during 2010 and forecasts are being revised higher. The expansion is generally expected to be modest in the major countries, due to the continuing legacy of the financial crisis. Prospects for Australia’s Asian trading partners appear to be noticeably better. Growth in China has been very strong, which is having a significant impact on other economies in the region and on commodity markets. For Australia’s trading partner group, growth in 2010 is likely to be close to trend. Sentiment in global financial markets has continued to improve. Nonetheless, the state of balance sheets in some major countries remains a potential constraint on their expansion. Economic conditions in Australia have been ...

LNG Makes It A Really G’Day, Mate

by Tony Daltorio, Investment U Research

They don’t call Australia the lucky country for nothing.

It must be luck to have such abundant amounts of energy, metals, minerals and agricultural commodities, not to mention residing so close to China and India, two countries with large populations and a seemingly insatiable appetite for such natural resources.

And that luck shows again in the recently approved, multi-billion dollar, Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which is spreading good fortune to the foreign companies involved in the venture and the investors who know that Australia is where it’s at…

Australia currently has the 14th largest known gas reserve in the world, and many expect it to make the world’s top ten list in that category sooner than later. Dr. Graeme Behtune, the director of research firm Energy Quest, estimates the

...

China is Investing Billions in Renewable Energy One firm has already built China’s largest wind turbine manufacturing factory. And it’s working with the Chinese Science Academy to develop new wind, solar, and geothermal technologies… for which it will own 70% of the rights. But this company’s business reaches far beyond the Chinese border, with operations in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. It’s first quarter net income increased by 294% over a year ago. Click here for the full report.

A $15 billion deal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) involving Australia, China and global-oil heavyweight Exxon-Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) has prompted many investors to worry that China may be using its global-markets muscle to “paper over” cracks in the global economy.

In reality, however, this mega-deal is a harbinger of what’s to come, and highlights the road that global investors must travel in their journey …