Week Nov 16 2012 – Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
“Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?” — Jack London
1. Greece raised 4 bln euros ahead of debt rollover — per MarketWatch, Greece appeared on track to redeem 5 billion euros ($6.3 billion) in treasury bills that are due, after selling 4.06 billion euros of one- and three-month bills at auction.
2. China Picks New Economic Chiefs, Zhou Seen Leaving PBOC — according to Bloomberg, China began installing a new economic leadership by indicating that central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan will step aside and Vice Premier Wang Qishan, the top finance official, will move to a new role.
3. Facebook braces for biggest lockup wave — Facebook (FB) shares are set to emerge from a post-initial public offering lockup last Wednesday, making them available for sale in the open market and potentially doubling the size of the company’s share float — about 800 million of the company’s shares held by insiders become eligible for sale.
4. Anti-austerity strikes sweep Europe — millions of workers in Europe are on strike to protest austerity as part of a “European Day of Action and Solidarity.” Spanish and Portuguese unions are carrying out their first coordinated general strike, while organizations in Greece, Italy, France and Belgium planned stoppages or demonstrations.
5. China Unveiled New Leaders — as expected, China unveiled the makeup of its top Communist Party leadership, elevating Vice President Xi Jinping to replace Hu Jintao. Vice Premier Li Keqiang was named the party’s No. 2, putting him on the path to take over as premier in March.
6. Euro zone slips into second recession since 2009 — Economic output in the 17-country euro zone fell 0.1 percent in the third quarter, the EU’s statistics office Eurostat said on Thursday, following a 0.2-percent drop in the second quarter.
Those two quarters of contraction put the euro zone’s 9.4 trillion euro ($12 trillion) economy officially in recession, although Italy and Spain have been contracting for a year already and Greece is suffering an outright depression.
7. Japan Election May Curtail Stimulus as Recession Looms — Japanese PM Yoshihiko Noda has called an election for December 16 after the upper house approved a bill to issue bonds that will fund government spending for the rest of the fiscal year and stop it from running out of money. Noda’s DPJ party is expected to lose to the opposition LDP, which favors uber-easing to help Japan get out of its deflationary black hole.
8. AAII latest sentiment readings – In prior bull market when the bullish sentiment dropped below 25%, the market rally over the next 3-month and 6-month;
The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:
