Week May 4 2012 – Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
“Pullbacks near the 30-week moving average are often good times to take action” — Michael Burke
1. Spain enters recession, S&P downgrades banks — Spain entered recession in Q1 for the second time since the financial crisis as GDP shrank 0.3% on quarter, although that was better than forecasts of -0.4%.
2. Growth among U.S. manufacturers expanded in April at the fastest pace in 10 months — Institute for Supply Management (ISM) rose to 54.8% from 53.4% in March, the highest reading since June 2011. The new-orders index, an indication of future demand, jumped to 58.2% from 54.5% in March. The production index also rose, up 2.7 percentage points to 61.0%.
3. Chinese factory activity sends out positive signal — China’s official PMI rose to a 13-month high of 53.3 in April from 53.1 in March and was well above last week’s HSBC “flash” PMI of 49.1, although the reading fell short of expectations of 53.5.
4. Facebook IPO valued at almost 100X profit — Facebook (FB) may sell up to $13.6B in stock, including with the over-allotment option, after pricing its IPO at $28-$35 a share. That would give it a market cap of $77B-$96B, or as much as 96X its 2011 net profit of $1B.
5. Hollande ousts Sarkozy in French vote — French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday became the latest in a long line of European leaders to lose his job in the wake of the euro-zone debt crisis, conceding defeat to Socialist challenger François Hollande.
The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: