The Australian share market has had a bad ride of late and the rollercoaster is set to continue until the US presidential election.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index dropped 0.2 per cent on Friday and fell 2.7 per cent over the week, its biggest weekly decline since mid-June.
It's set to open slightly lower on Monday following a late fall from Wall Street after the FBI announced it was reopening its investigation into US presidential candidate Hilary Clinton's emails, AMP Capital's chief economist Shane Oliver said.
"It's probably going to be a bit of a rollercoaster if it turns out there's not much in those emails," he said.
"We've seen this in the past. Whenever there's more confidence regarding Hillary winning, the US share market goes up."
Locally the highlight will be the Reserve Bank of Australia's interest rate decision, with expectations for a rate cut on Melbourne Cup day at just four per cent.
Dr Oliver said rates will likely be kept on hold because there has been reasonably solid economic data in Australia and a bounce back in commodity prices, even though last week's underlying inflation numbers were on the soft side.
New RBA governor Philip Lowe has implied a reluctance to cut rates quickly, he said.
"You get the impression he's a bit more focused on financial stability and a bit concerned that if they continue cutting it will serve to fuel the strength in home prices in Sydney and Melbourne," Dr Oliver said on Sunday.
Also out this week are Australian retail sales, which will probably show a rise of at least 0.2 per cent for the month of September but could be down for the September quarter.
Buildings approvals figures released on Wednesday will probably drop after a big spike a couple of months ago, Dr Oliver said.
The focus of the US market will be the upcoming presidential election, the Federal Reserve meetings, employment numbers for October and company earnings reports.
"Profit reporting season is causing a few gyrations on Wall Street and that's going to continue through the week as about 100 of the S&P 500 companies are due to report in the US," Dr Oliver said.
The US Federal Reserve will meet this week and is expected to signal it is on track to raise interest rates in December, he said.
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