Australia:

Tue: RBA Head of Economic Analysis speaks

Wed: CPI (Jan), Construction work (Q4) RBA Governor speaks

Thu: Capex (Q4), Average Weekly Earnings (biannual)

Fri: Private sector credit (Jan)

International:

Mon: US — Factory orders (Dec)

Tue: US — House prices (Dec)

Wed: EU — CPI (Jan)

             US — Consumer confidence (Feb) Nvidia results

Thu: EU — Business confidence (Feb)

Fri: JP — Industrial production (Jan) Retail sales (Jan) CPI (Feb)

        US — Producer price inflation (Dec)

January’s inflation data (Wednesday) is the focus of attention this week.

Westpac is estimating a 0.1% rise in the January CPI, dropping the annual pace from 3.8% to 3.6%.

The bank’s January Trimmed Mean estimate is 0.3%, which will hold the annual pace flat at 3.3%yr.

On these forecasts, the six-month annualised pace eases from back from 3.7%yr to 3.4%yr.

Westpac’s Justin Smirk says a focus will be on administered prices such as utility charges, council rates and education costs, which have been pushing up inflation as other parts of the CPI basket have cooled.

Mr Smirk says the source of inflation matters.

“The RBA will have to force market sector inflation to below target to offset poliyc-driven non-market-sector inflation,” he said.

“If higher inflation is being underpinned by administered prices, and not private demand, monetary policy ends up doing disproportionate damage to the market sector.”

Also out this week are the first pieces of the fourth-quarter GDP puzzle to be completed next week.

Construction work (Wednesday) is forecasting a solid 1.3% growth in Q4, underpinned by residential work, private engineering and public infrastructure.

This would be a rebound from the 0.7% decline in Q3, which was driving by the unwinding of mining construction.

Private sector capital expenditure, or Capex, (Thursday) may go the other way.

After robust growth of 6.4% in Q3, the market has pencilled in either a flat or slightly negative result in Q4.

Offshore, it is not a massive week of data.

Perhaps the most consequential numbers will be a quarterly update from the world’s most valuable company Nvidia after the market closes on Wednesday.

The consensus view is for revenue of $US65.5 billion over the quarter. A miss could further undermine confidence in the sector, but the bigger news may be the announcement of another massive investment in the Chat GPT business.