News - 2012 05

Today’s collapsing markets; Greece, Spain, the Euro, Bankia and Facebook will dominate people’s thoughts today, and so they should.

Markets in Asia on risk aversion mood again, after calm North America markets with US away for Memorial Day. Concerns over spike in Spanish bonds to 6.50%, and fresh challenge from Greece anti-austerity Syriza party, continue to weigh on sentiment as various government make contingency plans over Greece exit from euro.

The Godfather of newsletter writers, Richard Russell, warned his readers in the Dow Theory Letters that “something BIG is heading our way,” and wondered “how much longer the decline will continue to be orderly.”

sian stocks have gained some small ground today with the Nikkei up 0.14% and the Hang Seng up 0.66%, value that has been mirrored with a slight rise in Gold and Oil, again the Greeks are responsible for this move as there is some renewed optimism that they won’t cause the end of the world this week.

Relatively stable markets in early Asia trading, but renewed risk aversion seen creeping back as Cross/JPY, EUR/Cross under pressure in late morning.

Something of an air of disappointment initially on Wednesday as the long awaited break of 1.2625 on EUR/USD failed to produce any real follow through.

The rebound didn’t last long in the Asian markets. All main stock indices were down again this morning (23rd May 2012), after US stocks closed mostly flat yesterday (22nd May 2012).

More Risk aversion in Asia as traders made preparations for Greece euro exit - after some confusion whether former Greek PM Papademos did or did not say about exit preparations. EUR, AUD, NZD, Cross/JPY started the day under pressure, but USD/JPY, Cross/JPY traders were reluctant to sell ahead of BoJ decision - risk event - in case BoJ eased monetary policy further.

Yesterday (May 21st 2012) there was some heavy selling in the Indonesian stock market. Foreign investors were net sellers of IDR1.412 trillion (or approximately US$150 million) worth of shares.

The Bank of Japan will likely stick to its assessment that the flat domestic economy is showing signs of a turnaround, when policy board members convene for a two-day meeting starting Tuesday.

European leaders are drawing up a series of crisis-fighting proposals to raise at an informal EU summit this week that have in the past been rejected by Germany putting further pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel.

European shares were set to open sharply lower on Friday, heading for their worst weekly loss since late November on an escalating crisis hitting Spain’s sovereign debt and its banks, downgraded en masse by Moody’s overnight.

In a sign of rising anxiety among Greeks, depositors withdrew EUR700 million (about $891 million) from local banks Monday. Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to soothe investor fears by saying in an interview on CNBC that Germany was determined to keep Greece in the euro zone, though reports suggesting that the ECB could stop operations with some Greek banks compounded the confusion.

It was a pretty dismal day for European markets yesterday as investors seemed to have decided on limiting their exposure to European stocks with financials dragging the FTSE down.