On Point

The local earnings season is upon us, with a plethora of listed companies due to announce results this month. This will offer some valuable insights into the state of corporate New Zealand and the broader economy, after a mixed bag of indicators in recent months.

The economic highlight of the week will be the CPI inflation report in the US, which covers the month of July and is out on Wednesday. This release takes on greater importance after the soft jobs report, which saw expectations for further Federal Reserve rate hikes fall back sharply. Markets now see a greater chance of no change at the September meeting.

There's a lot going on in the US at the moment, from monetary policy and midterms, to earnings releases and market leadership rotations. We spoke to a US equities expert at JPMorgan Asset Management to answer some of our questions and provide some insights into the investment outlook.

If you’ve only glanced at the S&P 500 index in the US these past few months, you might conclude it’s been a relatively quiet period. The market is up around 11 per cent this year, just slightly below its all-time high. Nothing to see here. Look under the hood, however, and it’s a completely different story.

It’ll be another busy week of corporate earnings releases too, with close to 140 more S&P 500 companies scheduled to report. A wide range of sectors will be represented, with some of the highlights likely to be Caterpillar, McDonald's,Disney, Uber and Republic Services. SpaceX will announce its inaugural result as a listed company, while we'll also hear from healthcare heavyweights Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.