29.03.16 Tuesday Morning

With March wrapping up and April getting underway that only means one thing: non-farm Friday! The US won’t completely hog the limelight, however, the UK returning from the Easter break with the final Q4 GDP figure whilst China chips in with its manufacturing and services PMIs.

US
After sporadically touching 17600 last week, the Dow Jones will be looking to cap off March, and start April, in style, the index having already gained around 2000 points in a month and a half. The main hurdle to clear, of course, is Friday’s non-farm jobs report; whilst it might not carry as much weight as March’s pre-Fed meeting release it is still arguably the most anticipated data dump each month, and investors will be looking to see if the figures will signal any shift in sentiment from the central bank going forwards.

In the run up to the non-farm jobs report investors still have plenty to occupy themselves with; whilst Europe rests on Easter Monday the US releases its core PCE price index (reportedly the Fed’s preferred measurement of inflation), goods trade balance and personal spending figure, before posting the CB consumer confidence on Tuesday. Wednesday gives investors a sneak-peak into Friday’s figures with the ADP non-farm employment change number whilst Thursday’s usual jobless claims are joined by the Chicago PMI. Friday is then an extra-busy day, the non-farm jobs report joined by the contraction-flirting Markit and ISM manufacturing PMIs, and the revised UoM consumer sentiment figure.

UK
Spending most of last week struggling to break the same 6200 barrier that has clipped its wings throughout March, the FTSE will be aiming to see a significant surge above that level before the month comes to a close.

It will have to do that in an abbreviated week, however, the index off for Easter Monday, before returning on Tuesday and Wednesday with effectively nothing in the economic calendar cannon. Things pick up on Thursday, however, with the UK current account, net lending to individuals and, most importantly, the final fourth quarter GDP arriving in the morning. Friday is similarly busy the country’s manufacturing PMI following China’s own figures, the latter likely to have a notable impact on the UK oil and mining stocks.

Earnings wise things are incredibly sparse; AG Barr, which suffered in the aftermath of George Osborne’s sugar-tax announcement, reveals its full year figures on Tuesday, joined by cinema operator Everyman Media and cruise company Carnival.

Eurozone
With the DAX hitting post-10100 highs not seen since January the Eurozone indices will be looking to consolidate what has been a rocky, but overall positive, March this week.

Like the UK the region has Easter Monday offer, before returning with German retail sales and M3 money supply figures on Tuesday. Wednesday brings with it the latest German inflation reading and little else, before picking up on Thursday with the Spanish and Eurozone-wide flash CPI data. Friday, finally, sees a wave of manufacturing figures, Spain, Italy, Germany and France all aiming to continue to improve on last month’s data.

Stock of the week: Blackberry Ltd – Q4 2016 Earnings Release
Once a smartphone giant Blackberry has increasingly gone the way of the landline, ceding ground to the omnipresent duo of Apple and Samsung.

Yet things began to pick up as 2015 came to a close after Blackberry posted a still troublesome, but better than expected, set of Q3 figures. Whilst revenue fell 31% year-on-year to $548 million that is still a 12% increase quarter-on-quarter, the first time the company has seen such a rise in nearly 2 years. Information surrounding its recently launched Priv smartphone, the first to run on the Android operating system, was less promising, with sales dropping off by 100,000 quarter-on-quarter to a mere 700,000.

All in all investors were suitably impressed by Blackberry’s Q3 report, lifting the stock to a 5 and a half month high of $9.29 by the end of 2015. However, things quickly turned sour at the start of 2016; falling nearly 25% in the first 2 weeks of the year Blackberry was back at lows it hadn’t see since it began to recover from the impact of Black Monday in August. The stock remained below $7 all the way into mid-February, before creeping higher as March got underway.

In terms of its fourth quarter figures next week the success of Priv, which has had enough time to establish its presence in the smartphone market, likely will dictate the post-earnings reaction from investors, each 100,000 sold potentially adding $30-35 million in revenue.