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Markets React to a Week of Good News from the US

By:
Barry Norman
Updated: Jan 1, 2011, 00:00 UTC

Investors are looking past the European debt crisis and banking fiasco and are looking close to home again. This week was a week of good solid financial

Markets React to a Week of Good News from the US

Investors are looking past the European debt crisis and banking fiasco and are looking close to home again. This week was a week of good solid financial reports from the US that were overlooked and overshadowed by the constant distractions from the EU.

The US unemployment dropped significantly, a much better than expected results. Holiday shopping remains brisk, although November figures were disappointing. Black Friday and Cyber Monday, were incredible retail days, but shopper had saved and waited all month, so the month was way down, it was the incredible turn out after the Thanksgiving Holidays that turned the month of November around. Hopefully, these numbers will continue through to the end of the shopping season. Consumer Sentiment is up.

At last week’s Fed meeting, Ben Bernanke, took little action,but stated that the US economy was showing improvement, but very slowly. It is moving in the right direction. The Fed, decided to leave things alone through the holiday season, and wait and prepare for the first quarter in 2012.

New York Manufacturing was up along with Philly, Industrial Output dropped a small amount but less than expected going into the holiday season.

The Regional Fed Factory report was up. The current account deficit was down.  The Commerce Department said the U.S. current account deficit fell to the lowest level in almost two years. The current account measures the inflow and outflow of trade and money between the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Yesterday, the New York Federal Reserve said its Empire State manufacturing gauge rose in December to its highest level in seven months.

As the week draws to an end, Asian shares took a bounce upwards as strong U.S. economic data aided relief-buying after a string of recent losses, although trading was light on concerns about the euro zone crisis and ahead of the weekend.

China’s Shanghai Composite popped out of a six-day losing streak to soar 2% to 2,224.84 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng moved up 1.4% to 18,285.39.

Japan’s Nikkei Exchange closed0.3% higher at 8,401.72, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 hopped up to 4,159.20, South Korea’s Kospi rose1.2% to 1,839.96 and Taiwan’s Taiex inched up 0.3% to 6,789.09.

US shares in premarket trading are rising before today’s release of the Consumer Price Index, futures rose on the Dow  48 points to 11,870 and on the S&P they climbed 7.20 points to 1,218.9. The NASDAQ joined the club climbing 12.25 points to 2,235.5.

The economic calendar is minimal today and things have been quiet from the EU, US markets should continue upwards. The dollar remains strong today

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