This week will be "massive for markets'' and key indicators will be watched by central banks around the world, Craigs Investment Partners broker Peter McIntyre says.
Early tomorrow morning, the GlobalDairyTrade (GDT) auction would provide more detail on how dairy prices were tracking, Mr McIntyre said.
At the last auction, the headline GDT index increased 1.4% and whole milk powder prices rose 2.9%. Lower volumes offered by Fonterra influenced prices positively and the impact of lower volumes could be felt further over the rest of the year.
Fonterra had cited bad weather as the reason for reduced volumes and lower milk collection in some regions, such as the Waikato, he said.
In what was shaping as a big week for local data, one of the highlights would be the September labour market data due for release at 10.45am tomorrow.
Westpac senior economist Anne Boniface said she expected to see further growth in employment in September.
That could mean unemployment falling further to 5%.
The volatility in Statistics New Zealand's quarterly Labour Market Statistics made it difficult to read, and the September quarter was no different, she said.
Major changes in methodology were incorporated into the June release, meaning "genuine'' employment growth in that quarter was less than the 2.4% growth recorded.
"So with these changes muddying the waters, we'd suggest focusing on the unemployment rate for the least polluted gauge on how the labour market is faring.
"On that front, we expect to see further improvement.''
Low inflation and strong growth in labour force participation and the labour force had kept a lid on nominal wage growth to date, Ms Boniface said.
In June, annual Labour Cost Index (LCI) inflation was 1.6% and had been below 2% since mid-2012.
There had been more signs of life in the broader Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) measure of wage inflation which rose 0.8% in June to be up 2.1% on the year.
The story was unlikely to change in September and Westpac was forecasting annual LCI and QES wage inflation of 1.7% and 2% respectively.
Mr McIntyre said the US Federal Reserve meeting this week was likely to reaffirm plans for a December interest rate rise.
There was no shortage of market-moving events in other parts of the world this week but the Federal Reserve meeting was one of the major ones.
The Fed would wrap up its November meeting with an interest rate announcement at 7am (NZ time) on Thursday.
No press conference had been scheduled and markets would have only the prepared statement to work with.
"The Fed is not expected to do anything this week - less than a week out from the US election - and markets were viewing the December meeting as the live one.''
The key economic release in the US would be the October non-farm payroll report on Friday, he said.
The market was expecting 175,000 jobs to have been added, up from 156,000 in September.
Euro zone economic growth for the three months ended September was expected to be released early this morning (NZ time) and the consensus forecasts were for quarterly growth of 0.3% and an annual increase of 1.6% - both unchanged from June.
The official Chinese manufacturing index was scheduled to be released today at 2pm followed 45 minutes later by the Caixin Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI).
Both were expected to remain unchanged at 50.4 and 50.1 respectively.
Aside from the August reading, last month's official manufacturing index was the highest since October 2014 and the Caixin had been above 50 for three consecutive months now for the first time since late 2014.
The Reserve Bank of Australia was likely to hold its cash rate at 1.5% this week and the Bank of Japan meeting today was unlikely to yield anything new, he said.
The Bank of England would meet overnight on Thursday, although markets did not expect any change to settings there either.
It was a quieter week for annual meetings in New Zealand and Australia as most companies had already held their annual meetings.
However, there were still a few to look forward, including Chorus, Mercury, SLI Systems and Spark in Australia, Mr McIntyre said.
