Morning Memo: Friday, August 16, 2013

"Morning Memo" begins below this "NOTE for  NEWCOMERS" to "Morning Memo"...... Each morning, we post a short bullet-point list of noteworthy events, data, etc that find their way into the assessment of global markets.  It's far from complete and is not meant to be an exhaustive reconciliation of all things that could possibly impact stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities!  Rather, it's best viewed as a cryptic memo of "highlights", noteworthy items that took place in Asia, European and US hours.....and color-coded 'Red' for seemingly negative impact on equity markets, 'Green' for positive.
This will also serve as a useful review mechanism, as scrolling through the series of "Morning Memo" posts over time ought to summarily highlight what generally drove price action.  
We hope you find this useful and informative....and as always, that you'll share feedback!!
5:30am, ET....

• Yesterday's 225 pt sell off in the US Dow, carried through to Asia.  Asian markets ended generally lower, though off the worst levels of the day, and after some drama in China's Shanghai Index where they experienced the opposite of a 'flash crash' where the market went from down 1% to up 5.8% in moments! The market reverted and closed down 0.6% on the day. Rumors cited a large trade error. 
• Asian markets were generally up on the week despite the end-of-week gloom around the world:  Shanghai up 0.8%, Heng Seng up 3.3%, Australia 1.2% and Nikkei 0.3%.
• New Zealand market was temporarily closed on word of a powerful earthquake.
• India...Rupee hits new lows.  Stocks took a beating.  Market was reacting negatively to new measures aimed at limiting capital outflows.
• Eurozone...inflation was in line @ 1.6%, well below the ECB's 2% target.
• Eurozone..trade surplus widened on strong exports out of Germany. Chart from The Financial Times' fastFT:   
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• Egypt...major protests expected after today's prayer services, after major bloodshed this week and after Obama's cancellation of military exercises w/Egypt  
• US..Housing Starts and Permits essentially in line w/expectations;  Charts from CalculatedRiskBlog.com :
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• Michigan Consumer Confidence..worse than expected!

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