GLOBAL MARKETS WEEKAHEAD-Divisions dominate as Q3 begins
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent
LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) - Investors have entered the third quarter deeply divided about what should be happening on financial markets.
While some reckon the global economy is well on the mend and therefore it is time to put more money into stocks and riskier assets, others see fragility and danger, and remain cautious.
With a relatively light data agenda and the next corporate earnings season yet to get fully under way, the coming week is unlikely to see an end to the dispute.
What investors need for a firm commitment to riskier assets -- one that can sustain the relief rally of the last quarter -- is concrete evidence that banks have begun normal lending, consumers are spending and that the economy is growing.
June's U.S. payroll data, which was far worse than expected, provided the opposite message on the economy and brought out the bears. "(It) suggests that the alleged `green shoots' are mostly yellow weeds that may eventually turn into brown manure," economist Nouriel Roubini wrote on his RGE Monitor blog.
But others expect the generally improving economic picture to continue emerging next week, including in Monday's U.S. ISM non-manufacturing data and Friday's Michigan consumer sentiment report.
This disparity of views has led to something of a hiatus on stock markets. While world stocks .MIWD00000PUS gained more than 21 percent in a record second quarter, they traded more or less flat in June.
"After having reacted quasi-euphorically to the first hopes that the recession may end soon, the market is now wondering about the timing, nature and strength of the expected economic recovery," BNP Paribas Investment Partners said in a note.
EARNINGS AHEAD
A key to this may come from the new earnings season. This does not start properly until the week after next, but there could be a taster on Wednesday when aluminium giant Alcoa (AA.N) reports.
Thomson Reuters Proprietary Research calculates that analysts expect S&P 500 .SPX earnings to have dropped an average 35.5 percent in the second quarter. There have been 56 negative earnings-per-share pre-announcements heading into the reporting season and 37 positive ones, it says.
Analysts' views on how stock markets will end the year ranged widely in Reuters polls released this week. The consensus was for the S&P to gain another 8 percent, European shares 3 percent and Japan to end flat. [ID:nLU605014]
Some people are more upbeat. Barclays Wealth advised its clients this week to increase portfolio risk levels to normal, due to growing evidence that the decline in economic activity is ending.
In the next few weeks investors are likely to move away from wholesale buying of cheap stocks to more selective picking. "Almost anywhere you go, you can find interesting stocks with value," Schroders Chief Investment Officer Alan Brown told Reuters television.
G8 AND THE DOLLAR
Investor attention next week is also likely to focus on the Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy. The slow-burning issue of international reserve currencies could cause some volatility if it is raised as China, which will attend with other large emerging market countries, says would be normal.
The issue is whether there is any serious momentum behind a potential move away from the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency and into Special Drawing Rights, a basket of currencies which is the International Monetary Fund's accounting unit.
But the discussions, if they take place at all, are unlikely to take any concrete form and so any related currency moves would probably be short-term. "I don't think that the dollar is at risk in the current context," said Audrey Childe-Freeman, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. (To read Reuters Global Investing Blog click here; for the MacroScope Blog click on blogs.reuters.com/macroscope; for Hedge Hub click on blogs.reuters.com/hedgehub)
