Showing posts with label Government Shutdown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Government Shutdown. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 December 2013
The shutdown deal hit markets
What started as a rather drowsy week, quickly escalated into something more upbeat, when on Wednesday a deal was reached in Washington: the Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed a two-year compromise-spending plan, aimed to prevent shutdowns in the future. The plan entailed a cut in the U.S. Government budget, leading to a reduced budget deficit. On the surface, this was good news for the markets, as the previous shutdown has had quite a devastating effect on the U.S. economy as a whole, and specifically the U.S. labor market. However, as the Fed is probably aware of the former fact and the brighter path it paves for U.S. employment, it was also natural to assume tapering is closer at hand.
Equity markets retorted with a swift, albeit moderate, nudge downwards; The S&P500 lost about -0.5% as the news spread. The same pessimistic sentiment continued to provide negative pressure on equity prices throughout the day. However, that was haled on Thursday as the Department of Labor’s Initial Jobless Claims surged to 368K, an increase of 68K from the previous week's revised figure of 300K. For reference, the last time Initial Claims saw such levels was nearly two months ago, on the week ending October 4th, shortly after the Government shutdown. Needless to mention, the hike of initial claims pushed markets back towards "taper off", at least for the time being. Not only that, Retails Sales figures also presented an allegedly positive 0.7% Month over Month increase, but this seems to be mostly the result of Auto sales, as Retail Sales (Less Autos) presented a more moderate 0.4% increase… so that also helped ease tapering concerns.
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Monday, 2 December 2013
Positive data-backed momentum
Last week, equity trading provided another opportunity to admire the optimism recently present in the markets.
Tuesday, provided an opportunity for the NASDAQ to really shine as it passed the 4K mark again, and closed the trading day there, for the first time in 13 years. The positive trading day was backed by U.S. Building Permit statistics, which indicated that 1,034K annualized new permits were granted in October. On the one hand, this is the highest figure since January 2008. On the other hand, it could be a latent response to the recent Federal Government Shutdown, so it will be interesting to re-examine those figures in November.
The day also saw the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index losing two points to a level of 70.4. The same positive momentum continued on Wednesday as Initial Jobless Claims dropped by 10K versus the previous week.
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