Summary of Market Events for the week

We spend many hours each week reviewing a variety of the very best sources for new insights.  Given how uncertain things are right now (though we had a 300+ pt day on Thursday , I thought I’d post a few more articles than usual that we’ve found especially useful during these difficult times. Here’s one of those below:

A great Market Summary for the week’s events:

Positives:

• EU officials finally have structure for debt crisis control, details to follow. [the major contributor for Thursday’s 300+ pt move, in our opinion]
• China’s HSBC preliminary manufacturing number came in at 51.1, 1st time above 50 since June
• US Durable Goods orders surprise to upside [only a few months left for businesses to take advantage of  100% accelerated depreciation tax benefit]
• Q3 GDP grows 2.5% led by personal consumption [as mentioned in a previous blog post – the market can perform well in “modest” GDP growth -> there’s no correlation between GDP & Market Returns]
• University of Michigan confidence almost 3 pts higher than estimates and up 1.5 pts from September

Negatives:

• US Savings Rate falls to 3.6%, lowest since July ’08. Contrary to US fiscal and monetary policy, we need more savings and investment and less borrowing and spending
• Conference Board Consumer Confidence falls to lowest since Mar ’09
• CS home price index down to just shy of lowest since ’03
• Notwithstanding EU deal, markets losing faith in Italian politicians ability to liberate their economy and cut spending, 5 yr yield rises to highest since 1997, Spanish yields spike too
• Italian consumer confidence falls to lowest since 1982
• Euro region manufacturing and services composite index falls to lowest since July ’09

Source: A great Market Summary for the week’s events comes to us from another website I read (The Big Picture HERE)