Morning Memo: Tuesday, August 13, 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!!
 9:00 am ET...

• Japan...machine orders better than expected...dropped 2.7% beating forecasts of -7.1%. Core rose 4.9% vs est of 2.6%. Nikkei up 1.4% on opening, rallies on to close up 2.6%.  Talk of cut in corporate taxes helped.  Also, Yen weaker, helped exporters.

• Japan BoJ…minutes were cautiously optimistic, citing the beginning of economic recovery but cautioning about “prospects for the European debt problem, developments in the emerging and commodity-exporting economies, and the pace of recovery in the US economy”.

• Australia business confidence falls to eight month low on slowing Chinese demand for resources.  But stock market rallied w/other Asian markets on recent uptick in Chinese econ data and sentiment.

• India..raises import duty on Gold, following several measures to tax gold which is a huge part of India's imports and a big contributor to India's trade deficit.  The central bank and ministry of finance have continued to take measures to support the weak Rupee, fight inflation, and reduce the fiscal deficit.
• Europe opened stronger ahead of Germany's ZEW economic sentiment indicator which came out better than expected at highest rate since March.
• UK demand for homes rises to four year high.
• European markets rally on heels Germany's ZEW and UK's housing data.
• US...Retail Sales better than expected at the core (ex auto and energy) level, though slightly worse than expected at the headline level due to drop in auto sales.
• US…CFTC has subpoenaed Goldman, JPMorgan and Glencore re probe into metals warehousing industry. 
• Bonds..generally pushing higher in yield..US 10s @ 2.65% and German Bunds pushing 1.8%.
• more later...

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