Morning Notes
- Mixed action in overseas markets
- Nikkei showed notable strength, closing up 1.2%, after the BOJ announced they would leave rates unch’d while increasing growth projection to +3.3% from +2.1%
- UK Q4 GDP came in significantly lower than expected- GDP actually contracted instead of the expected expansion, coming in at -0.5% vs. +0.4% expected
- FTSE sold off on that data news as did the pound
- German Consumer Confidence number came in strong, hence the DAX is outperforming the rest of the European bourses
- Spain’s Finance Minister announced that Spanish banks will need to raise their core capital level to 8% and that capital could be raised through financial mkts, or the gov’t will partially take over the banks- he also specified that it will take <20B EURO to take over weaker Spanish banks
- The above news on Spanish banks pushed the IBEX down about 1% and is adding pressure to foreign banks in general
- Gold particularly weak this morning, other commodities seeing pressure
- Dollar is showing strength, particularly due to weakness in the pound
- November Case Shiller: -1.59% vs. -1.50%; prior revised down to -0.84% from -0.80%
- Consumer Confidence @ 10a; November FHFA Housing Prices at 10a;
- Also note that Obama’s State of Union speech will commence at 8p
- Obama is expected to push spending in areas like renewable energy, education
- Obama to address American competitiveness, need for budget cuts (though he will probably not specific in which areas those cuts are needed)
- FOMC meeting kicks off today (two day meeting)- a decision will be disclosed tomorrow afternoon
- S&P futures are down in the premarket, about 5.5 handles from FV
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