Next week promises to be a busy one with a particularly heavy agenda on Tuesday with the New Hampshire primary, testimony from Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell and a Samsung event.
Here’s what to watch in the coming days.
Oscars
The 92nd Academy Awards kick off on Sunday evening and have once again been criticised for their lack of diversity. The awards follow a record year for cinema as the global box office exceeded $42bn for the first time ever in 2019, according to ComScore.
Joker — a movie that pulled $1.1bn at the box office on a modest budget of $55m — is nominated for 11 Oscars, the most of any film. The movie proved wildly profitable, not just for Warner Bros, the studio behind the R-rated film about DC Comics’s Batman villain, but other financiers, like Canadian pension funds, mutual funds and insurance companies, as the FT’s Anna Nicolaou and Alex Barker report.
UK GDP
On Tuesday investors get an update on the health of the UK economy. GDP is expected to be flat in the fourth quarter on a sequential basis and up 0.8 per cent year-on-year.
“We would never describe a data point as irrelevant, but the Q4 UK GDP release comes very close to that description,” said strategists at RBC Capital Markets. “The GDP data largely covers the period prior to December’s general election, when we know that uncertainty around both the election outcome and Brexit dragged on activity.”
Powell testimony
Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell delivers his semi-annual testimony to Congress next week, appearing before the House financial services committee on Tuesday and the Senate banking committee on Wednesday.
Mr Powell is expected to strike a dovish tone as he provides an update on the outlook for the US economy and monetary policy as well as the impact from the deadly Wuhan-linked coronavirus.
“We would expect him to reiterate that the economic fundamentals of the US are sound and that a ‘material change’ is required to shift them from their view that rates are on hold for the foreseeable future,” said economists at ING.
They add: “Markets will be wondering if the coronavirus could be that ‘material change’ that tempts them into a supportive rate cut. We continue to believe the risks are skewed towards such action.”
Samsung event
Samsung is scheduled to hold its “Galaxy Unpacked” event in San Francisco on Tuesday, and the tech company is expected to unveil a host of new products. Chatter so far has focused on its flagship Samsung Galaxy S20 series of smartphones. The company has only cryptically teased that it will introduce “innovative devices that will shape the next decade of mobile experiences”.
New Hampshire primary
Also on Tuesday, the New Hampshire primary. Democratic candidates and their supporters will look to the Granite State to deliver some clarity on the race, following the Iowa caucuses fiasco.
The Iowa Democratic Party declared Pete Buttigieg the winner of its caucuses following a chaotic three-day count, and the chair of the Democratic National Committee has called for the results to be reviewed. Mr Buttigieg has moved to New Hampshire with some momentum behind him, though Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is hot on his trail.
Here is the FT’s breakdown of how the primaries work and how many delegates each of the Democratic candidates have.
Earnings
Earnings season continues in the US and elsewhere. Nearly 70 companies listed on the S&P 500 are slated to report results, including PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, Hasbro, Cisco, Nvidia and AIG.
Over in Europe, investors look for the latest updates from Barclays, Daimler, Renault, Bombardier and Airbus. Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank that just ousted its chief executive Tidjane Thiam in the wake of a spying scandal, also reports results next week.
