The Overnight Report: Let Them Eat Cake

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By Greg Peel

The Dow closed down 10 points or 01% while the S&P added less than 0.1% to 1321 and the Nasdaq was steady.

Wall Street posted its most significant fall for a while last night on the open as the situation in Egypt boiled over once more. But while the 83 point early drop in the Dow suggested the winning streak on the Street might be well and truly broken this time, such a move a year or two ago would have brought reports of “Wall Street little changed”. And once again the weakness was brief as the US shrugged off problems in the rest of the world and returned to looking inward.

The end result was a slight positive for the S&P 500 while the crisis centre du jour hung in the balance waiting to hear wether President Mubarak would this time actually depart. As we speak he remains resolute with some sort of announcement pending.

But just as Egypt was erupting once more, the ghosts of 2010 came back to haunt bond markets as Portuguese debt suddenly took a turn for the worse and traded at historically high yields. Traders were stuck for a specific explanation but were reminded that Europe's debt problems are very much still with us.

The end result of both ex-US developments was a 0.8% bounce in the US dollar index to 78.23. Yet Wall Street otherwise appeared to stay quite calm, and movements in other markets were equally timid.

Gold had barely moved on the close at US$1361.40/oz after initially dipping on the dollar's jump. Base metals were similarly little changed with copper stronger but still sitting just under 10,000/t. Oil rose US2c to US$86.73/bbl. The Aussie slipped 0.7 of a cent to US$1.0044.

Were it not for another profit warning from Dow component Cisco, which saw the stock down 14% in the session to almost match the unprecedented 16% drop marked in November on an earlier profit warning, Wall Street would have posted yet another modest but healthy gain. Perhaps the most telling figure was the VIX volatility index. Egypt is in turmoil, Portugal is back to haunt us, yet the VIX ticked up only very slightly and still reads 16.

No one on Wall Street seems to care anymore what happens elsewhere. America is strong again, apparently, and that's all that matters.

Earlier the Bank of England decided to leave its cash rate at the longstanding 0.5% level despite many in the market assuming maybe a hike was due. Commentators suggest it was a close run thing nevertheless, with policy-makers tossing up between strict austerity measures on the one hand and rising inflation on the other. The lack of change helped the US dollar surge ahead.

The SPI Overnight was down 12 points or 0.2%.

The highlight today of the local result season will be Newcrest ((NCM)) and RBA governor Glenn Stevens is also due to make a regular testimony to parliament. China is also due to release its monthly round of economic data today, although economic calendar collators are not 100% sure. Beijing is not one for sticking religiously to schedules.

Your editor Rudi Filapek-Vandyck will feature on BoardRoomRadio's Friday Afternoon Round Table later today (3pm live).

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