The new trading week will begin with investors weighing up the impact of growing COVID outbreaks and lockdowns across Australia. Overseas, the S&P 500 reset all-time highs after its best week since February. 

A bipartisan infrastructure deal spurred a rally among energy shares and bank stocks, despite the Fed key inflation indicator showing its biggest year-on-year rise in almost 30 years.

Economic calendar and news

More key speeches from Board members of the Federal Reserve will grab headlines this week, with the central bank seemingly divided in terms of its trajectory for the first interest rate hikes. 

The other major data-point from the US will be the job figures for June. The recovery in the jobs market has been patchy over the last couple months, with numbers falling well short of expectations. That has also weighed on discussions concerning the Federal Reserve monetary policy stance, with subdued numbers providing more scope for policy officials to exercise caution.

Estimates point to another 600,000-700,000 jobs being added to the US economy, alongside a marginal improvement in the unemployment rate to 5.7%. With that said, it was only a short time ago that economists had set their sights on consistent gains in the job market of at least 1 million new hires per month.

Closer to home, the end of the financial year keeps this week economic agenda light in terms of news, with private sector credit, the Balance of Trade, and lending data the only real announcements. Philip Lowe was scheduled to participate at the Australian Banking Association Banking Conference, however, this event has now been postponed in light of the Sydney lockdown.

Stocks on watch

Lockdown' stocks are among those likely to be on the radar of local investors and traders this week, with Greater Sydney entering a two-week lockdown that will hit many businesses, but also buoy activity for a select number of other businesses.

The end of last week proved to be a precursor to this move, with the likes of JB HiFi (ASX: JBH), Kogan (ASX: KGN) and Temple & Webster (ASX: TPW) putting in a particularly strong performance during the second-half of the week. That came as investors bet on a return to growth for ecommerce players, as well as increased sales for electronics retailers selling products to work-from-home. KFC operator Collins Foods (ASX: CKF) was another stock to climb as restaurants shut.Elsewhere, there are mixed leads for local banking giants such as Westpac (ASX: WBC) and National Australia Bank (ASX: NAB). While offshore banks in the US such as Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) ended the week on a high note, local sentiment is likely to be influenced by the Greater Sydney lockdown and early mention of loan deferral relief for customers in hardship. This may also be something on the minds of payment processing firm Tyro Payments (ASX: TYR), which stands to see reduced throughput across its network of terminals over at least the next fortnight. Recent momentum building in the likes of Zip (ASX: Z1P) and Afterpay (ASX: APT) may be a focal point as both stocks were winners amid much of 2020 when lockdowns and working-from-home were almost par the course.

ASX-listed travel stocks also stumbled last week in response to Sydney initial lockdown plans, and may be under the microscope again over the coming days as new COVID cases and restrictions arose in a number of regions over the weekend.

With a large portion of the domestic travel market now set to be up-ended for the foreseeable future, including what was looming as a busy school holiday period for tourism operators, the flow-on impact may mean a bumpy ride for travel and leisure stocks. Names likely to be affected include Qantas (ASX: QAN), Flight Centre (ASX: FLT), Webjet (ASX: WEB), Corporate Travel Management (ASX: CTD), Sydney Airport (ASX: SYD), and Star Entertainment (ASX: SGR).Finally, a number of stocks in the real estate sector trade ex-dividend tomorrow. Some of those trading without their dividend entitlements from tomorrow include Goodman Group (ASX: GMG), Stockland (ASX: SGP), Vicinity Centres (ASX: VCX), and Charter Hall Group (ASX: CHC), among many others. Dividends will also extend to the likes of Transurban Group (ASX: TCL), and a host of ETFs from ETF Securities Australia, iShares and Vanguard.