Australia Home Loan Data On Tap For Monday

(RTTNews) - Australia will on Monday release January figures for home loans, highlighting a busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. In December, home loans were up 8.7 percent on month and investment lending rose 8.2 percent.

Australia also will see Q4 figures business inventories and company profits, as well as February results for the Performance of Manufacturing Index from AiG.

Inventories are tipped to add 0.2 percent on quarter after sinking 0.5 percent in Q3, while profits are expected to fall 4.0 percent after climbing 3.2 percent in the previous three months. The manufacturing index score in January was 55.3.

South Korea will provide February figures for imports, exports and trade balance. Imports are expected to jump 12.3 percent on year after adding 3.1 percent in January. Exports are called higher by an annual 9.5 percent, slowing from 11.4 percent in the previous month - when the trade surplus was $3.96 billion.

Indonesia will see February numbers for consumer prices, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 0.09 percent on month and 1.38 percent on year - slowing from 0.26 percent on month and 1.55 percent on year in January. Core CPI is pegged higher at 1.52 percent on year, down from 1.56 percent in the previous month.

Thailand will release January figures for unemployment and February results for its business confidence index. In December, the jobless rate was 1.5 percent, while the business confidence index score was 44.2 in January.

Several of the regional countries will se February results for their respective manufacturing PMIs from Markit Economics, including Australia, Indonesia, Japan (Jibun), Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and China (Caixin).

Finally, the markets in South Korea and Taiwan are closed on Monday in observance of Independence Day and Peace Day, respectively. Both return to action on Tuesday.