In a busy economic week for New Zealand, most attention will be on the release this morning of the March Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion.
The survey provides a comprehensive read on economic activity before the March quarter GDP figures.
Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens said the survey's measure of businesses' own activity was an important indicator of GDP growth.
''We expect them to have remained firm through the March quarter. However, the survey does not cover the agricultural sector, which will be a drag on GDP through early 2015 due to the impacts of drought.''
Accounting for the effects of the drought, Mr Stephens estimated economic growth to have been 0.6% in the March quarter.
The survey's pricing gauges would be a key focus for the Reserve Bank. Input costs had fallen sharply and the survey would provide an early indicator of how that was passing through to final prices, he said.
Real Estate Institute house sales data was also expected today and market activity clearly has been slower in early 2015 than it was late last year. That was probably because the post-election rush of activity had faded.
Westpac expected nationwide sales continued to push higher in March. Data such as mortgage approvals and housing credit growth had accelerated, Mr Stephens said.
''At this stage, we remain comfortable with our forecast for a 7.5% increase in nationwide house prices this year. Auckland will probably exceed that figure, while the rest of New Zealand is a little more subdued, including Christchurch.''
Craigs Investment Partners broker Chris Timms said with the United States earning season under way, Wall Street was temporarily putting the US Federal Reserve and macroeconomic policy on the back burner in favour of a focus on individual company results and forecasts for a pulse on the economy's health.
A slew of big banks, including JP Morgan, Chase & Co and Bank of America, was due to report first-quarter earnings next week, providing an unexpected bright spot in an otherwise gloomy quarter.
Mortgage lending was expected to prop up US bank earnings for the first quarter as lower mortgage rates had spurred applications to refinance home loans, he said.
Profits of companies on the Standard & Poor's 500 were projected to have fallen by 2.9% in the first three months for a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Investors would also be watching other firms, such as Netflix, General Electric and Schlumberger, to see if corporate America more broadly outperformed the negative forecasts analysts had set, Mr Timms said.
''It's going to drive a lot of feelings of general investor confidence or concern about the back half of the year. Energy companies will likely be hit by a dramatic drop in oil prices since last June.''
In energy, the worst-performing sector companies might see first-quarter earnings plummet 64.3% from the same quarter a year ago, according to analyst estimates.
A strong US dollar was also expected to eat into the earnings of companies with international exposure as they converted their profits back into dollars.
