Week of Jan 25 2013 – Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
“For all the sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.” — John Whittier; an influential American Quaker poet
1. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) flu vaccine linked to narcolepsy — per Reuters, GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) Pandemrix H1N1 swine flu vaccine, which was given to over 30M people in 47 countries during the 2009-2010 H1N1 swine flu pandemic, has been linked with hundreds of cases of the incurable sleep disorder narcolepsy in Europe.
2. China factory activity improves further in January — MarketWatch, according to HSBC, the so-called “flash” manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for January climbed to a 24-month high of 51.9, rising from a final reading of 51.5 in December and 50.5 in November. A reading above 50 signals an expansion in manufacturing activity.
The final reading of HSBC’s PMI, as well as the results from an official survey jointly conducted by China’s National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing, are slated for release on Feb. 1.
3. Apple Shares Plummeted as Sales Missed — Apple (AAPL) shares FQ1 revenue missed Street forecasts for the third consecutive quarter despite climbing 18% to $54.51B. iPhone sales jumped 29% to 47.8M, the figure was below predictions of 50M. Net profit was flat at $13.07B due to higher manufacturing costs as gross margins slid, while EPS came in at $13.81 and beat consensus.
4. Spanish unemployment hits record — Spanish 10-year bond yields may be only just above 5%, but the crisis in the real economy continued unabated in Q4, with unemployment rising to a record 26.02% from 25.01% in Q3. The number of people out of work reached 6M, or a third of the eurozone’s jobless citizens.
5. AAII Bullish Sentiment Jumps To A 2-Year High — the weekly sentiment survey from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII), bullish sentiment saw its largest weekly increase since June 2011.
6. U.K. economy returns to contraction — U.K. preliminary Q4 GDP fell a greater-than-expected 0.3% on quarter vs +0.9% in Q3. The economy is 3.3% smaller than at its peak in Q1 2008 and has only recovered about half the output lost during the financial crisis.
The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:
