Daily Market Reports | Jan 19 2012
By Greg Peel
The Dow rose 96 points or 0.8% while the S&P conquered 1300 for the first time since August, rising 1.1% to 1308, and the Nasdaq added 1.5%.
“Deeper Crisis than the GFC,” screamed the headlines, “Global Growth Forecasts Slashed”. Yet a funny thing happened – nothing.
While the world might presently be enjoying the new sport of rating agency bashing, no one has anything much against the World Bank. It's just that while the markets suggest the ratings agencies run about six months behind the curve, it seems the World Bank is about half way through 2011. The analysis behind the Bank's infrequent published forecasts is no doubt extensive, suggesting that by the time the numbers are published the rest of the world has well and truly moved on.
Nobody blinked, therefore, when the World Bank's global GDP growth forecasts were cut to 2.5% in 2012 and 3.1% in 2013, down from 3.6% in each previously. Economists across the globe had already long ago moved their own numbers similarly downward. The popular media lapped it up of course, but then most of them can't even pronounce “quantitative”.
There were two major pieces of news out last night which had Wall Street trading higher. One was news of progress on the Greek haircut talks, the other was the quarterly result from Goldman Sachs.
News from Greece is that a resolution on the level of haircut – the number of cents in the dollar – private sector Greek bondholders will accept should be settled by week's end. Earlier in the week Greek prime minister Papademos threatened to pass legislation forcing a level of haircut if agreement could not be reached, which probably put the hurry-up on hedge funds thought to be holding out for the best deal. The clock is ticking given a big sovereign debt rollover due on March 20.
A resolution is not a resolution of Europe's wider problems, just a removal of a lingering uncertainty. The reality is that Greece will in no way be out of the woods and we could still, and probably will, be talking default again later in 2012. In the meantime, news from the IMF also boosted sentiment in Europe last night. The Fund is looking to quickly raise new funds to take its war chest to US$1 trillion which was seen as positive news. The idea is to again try to tap the BRICs for money and they were all very reluctant last time around. The BRICs will probably come to the party one day, but not until they can be sure Europe is not about to collapse and take BRIC hard-earned with it. See “Greece”.
Yesterday I noted scepticism over Goldman Sachs' capacity to meet seemingly ambitious 2012 earnings guidance, but last night's quarterly result from the world rulers rather silenced the critics. A big beat on the earnings line had Goldman shares surging 7% on the day, taking its banking comrades along for the ride in a complete reversal of Tuesday night's Citi-led slide. Indignant analysts did note, however, that revenues were nothing to write home about. The result was all about cost-cutting, mostly from staff layoffs and compensation reductions. Cost-cutting takes us back to 2009-10.
US industrial production rose 0.4% in December after falling 0.3% in November, which was another welcome piece of news. The fourth quarter saw IP grow at an annualised rate of 3.1% to mark no less than the tenth consecutive quarter of gains. Must be employing lots of robots.
The news out of Europe had the euro bouncing solidly last night, up 0.9%. This sent the US dollar index down 0.7% to 80.56 and the Aussie up another half a cent to US$1.0423 despite the dire warnings from those World Bank chappies. Gold added another US$8.80 to US$1660.10/oz.
Nor did the LME panic at the forecast cuts, as metals continued to tick higher after Tuesday's big moves. Brent oil has now shifted to the March delivery front month and it was down US91c to US$110.62 while West Texas February delivery was up US12c to US$100.83/bbl.
The SPI Overnight was up 30 points or 0.7% after being held back yesterday by the World Bank gloom.
It's unemployment day in Australia today which mortgage holders will be keeping a close watch on, while aside from the monthly CPI it's a big night in the US for earnings. Dow components Bank of America, Intel, IBM and Microsoft all report along with Google and Morgan Stanley.
After the bell eBay has posted a street-beating result which sees its shares up 1.7% in the after-market.
Rudi will appear on Sky Business today at noon.
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