Daily Market Reports | Nov 22 2012
By Greg Peel
The Dow rose 48 points, or 0.4%, while the S&P gained 0.2% to 1391 and the Nasdaq added 0.3%.
After arguing long into the night, eurozone and IMF officials announced they had failed to reach an agreement on the Greek debt situation during yesterday's Asian session – an announcement that ensured a soggy end to trading on the Australian market. However, as this Report has been anticipating, the failure came as no great shock to markets. The euro remained steady and Wall Street seemed more occupied with cranberry sauce.
Eurozone ministers want to grant Athens its request to extend the debt reduction deadline (down to 120% of GDP) to 2022 from the current 2020 and the IMF doesn't. The IMF wants further haircuts for bondholders instead, to which the eurozone objects. The irony of it all is that an extension of maturity and potential reduction in interest rate is a haircut by any other name. The IMF is said to be ready to compromise, nevertheless, so stay tuned on Tuesday morning (same time, same channel) for another meeting.
As at 6am (Sydney) this morning, the guns fell silent in Gaza. The Egyptian prime minister and Ms. Clinton managed to finally broker a ceasefire that may bring an end to the battle, but will of course never bring an end to the war. We went through exactly this in 2009. The world has nevertheless breathed a sigh of relief that the Persian beast will have retreated back into its cave.
News of the ceasefire agreement was released ahead of the actual timing, providing Wall Street with a reason to sign off ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday break on a more confident note. No one much cares about the Greek soap opera, and the fiscal cliff is on hold for the holiday as well. The Dow rallied up 40 odd points in the morning and stalled there after lunch as the tumbleweeds rolled through the NYSE. US markets will be closed tonight and a half-day Friday session wedged in between the weekend will be manned by unlucky skeletons.
The Michigan Uni fortnightly consumer sentiment measure was released last night and showed an edge-up to 82.7 as sentiment continues to push into levels not seen for five years. Economists had hoped for a better read, however, ahead of the traditional weekend shopping binge. The Conference Board leading economic index for October showed a 0.2% increase, suggesting more of the same in the current modest US recovery.
Last week's new jobless claims fell by 41,000 which would otherwise be met with exhilaration had the previous week's number not increased by a revised 90,000. It's all to do with Sandy, and net claims remain above the important 400,000 mark.
The flash reading of the US manufacturing PMI for November was released last night and showed an increase to 52.4 from 51.0 when economists had expected a flat result. No great surprise that the eurozone equivalent fell to 45.8 from 46.1 to mark the fastest rate of contraction since June 2009.
The US dollar is steady at 80.94, gold is steady at US$1729.40/oz and the Aussie is down 0.2% to US$1.0368.
Base metals mostly sold off a tad ahead of the US holiday and iron ore is unchanged at US$120.60/t.
All the action was in the oil market. Tuesday night's session saw a sell-off in the oils, as at that point a ceasefire in Gaza was anticipated. It didn't eventuate as expected, which might have sparked a strong reversal, but now it has hit, Brent was up US$1.03 to US$110.86/bbl and West Texas up US92c to US$87.67/bbl.
We saw a weak run to the close on the local bourse yesterday given the news from Greece and at that stage, no ceasefire. The Dow futures were indicating a weak open on Wall Street as the bell rang on Bridge Street. However, the Greek story garnered no offshore reaction and a ceasefire is now in place, so the SPI Overnight is up a healthy 25 points or 0.6%.
In today's session we will see whether the flash estimate of HSBC's manufacturing PMI for China can scrape over into expansion territory.
After his extensive junket, Rudi will once again appear on Sky Business Lunch Money today at noon.
Happy Thanksgiving to our Seppo mates.
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