The few highlights on the data front include Australian retail sales, to be released Tuesday, and Australian trade balance data, due out Wednesday. Both are for the month of November. New Zealand markets will also receive the November trade balance on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Japanese markets will receive November's preliminary leading and coincident composite indexes on Friday. The leading index is expected to come in at 81.4 after previously coming in at 85.2. The coincident index is expected to drop down to 94.9 after a previous 97.7 reading.

Calyon's Hervé Goulletquer wrote that it will likely take some time for markets to come out in full force following the past few weeks of holiday-thin trading. He also said the first half of 2009, data-wise, will likely resemble the last half of 2008, when the financial crisis hit.

"Signs of economic improvement will not become perceptible before the second part of the year," he wrote in a research note. "This suggests that during most of H109 scepticism and risk aversion will remain the dominant themes in the market."

Should that be the case, conditions would be right for the Japanese yen to have a bullish year, as equity markets continue to exhibit weakness.

The yen spent most of the past few months making broad-based gains as investors sought a safe haven from plummeting stock markets across the globe.

The Japanese Nikkei 225 closed 2008 at 8859.56 points, after opening the year at 15155.73, representing a decline of 6296.17 points on the year. The 41.5% annual loss is the largest points-decline in 16 years. On the other side of the continent, the S&P/Australian Securities Exchange 200 closed the year with a similarly steep 41.3% drop, falling to 3722.30 after opening at 6339.80.

All times in EST:

Sunday:

11:00 AU Quarterly Wage Agreements 3Q Prior: +4.0

16:45 NZ Card Spending M/M NOV Prior: +0.5%

17:30 AU AiG Performance of Service Index DEC Prior: +37.8

17:30 AU AiG Performance of Construction Index DEC Prior: +32.0

Monday:

0:00 JN Vehicle Sales Y/Y DEC Prior: -27.3%

18:50 JN Loans & Discounts Corp Y/Y NOV Prior: +2.3%

18:50 JN Monetary Base Y/Y DEC Prior: +1.9%

Tuesday:

16:45 NZ Trade Balance NOV Prior: -NZ$942.0M

16:45 NZ Imports NOV Prior: +NZ$4.78B

6:45 NZ Exports NOV Prior: +NZ$3.83B

16:45 NZ Balance YTD NOV Prior: -NZ$5220.0B

19:30 AU Retail Sales Trend M/M NOV Prior: +0.2%

19:30 AU Retail Sales SA M/M NOV Prior: +0.7%

20:00 AU HIA New Home Sales M/M NOV

Wednesday:

18:50 JN Foreign Buying Japan Bonds 26-Dec

18:50 JN Foreign Buying Japan Stocks 26-Dec

18:50 JN Japan Buying Foreign Stocks 26-Dec

18:50 JN Japan Buying Foreign Bonds 26-Dec

19:30 AU Trade Balance NOV Prior: +A$2952M

19:30 AU Building Approvals M/M NOV

19:30 AU Building Approvals Y/Y NOV

Thursday:

0:30 AU Foreign Reserves DEC Prior: +A$46.7B

18:50 JN Official Reserve Assets DEC Prior: +$1002.9B

Friday:

0:00 JN Leading Index CI NOV P Exp: +81.4 Prior: +85.2

0:00 JN Coincident Index CI NOV P Exp: +94.9 Prior: +97.7

9-12 JAN CN Entrepreneur Confidence Index Q4 Prior: +123.8

9-12 JAN CN Trade Balance (USD) DEC Prior: $40.09 billion

9-12 JAN CN Exports Y/Y% DEC Prior: -2.2%

9-12 JAN CN Imports Y/Y% DEC Prior: -17.9%

9-14 JAN NZ Business NZ Performance of Manufacturing Index Prior: 35.4

By Ryan Szporer, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , with contributions from Erik Kevin Franco, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , edited by Patrick McGee, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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