Morning Memo: Friday, October 18, 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!!
5:00am ET...

• Asia..markets generally higher.  China's Q3 GDP came in line with expectations @ 7.8%, Industrial Production was better than expected, and Retail Sales was just slightly below.  Collectively, it signaled to markets that China is still growing at a reasonable pace, although skeptics noted that increased Government spending helped prop up the GDP data, and that though the Ind Prod and Retail Sales were close to expectations, they were lower m/m, indicating some slowing.
• Europe....playing off of China's data and yesterday's US post-debt-ceiling deal uptrade in the US, is generally higher in early hours.
• UK..Mortgage Lending up 32% in Q3 y/y!  (that's not a typo!).  The housing market continues to show strength with huge tailwinds from the Government's "Help to Buy" program.
• Of interest:
• FT's fastFT reports:


• HSBC's research...says inflation in rising across much of Asia and that should be good for Gold prices rising.  Noting that much of global gold demand comes from Asia.
  

• Funds flowing into Asia equity markets surged in the week ending Oct 16 according to data from ANZ.
• 

• US NonFarm Payrolls data for September, which should have been released last Friday but wasn't due the shutdown, will be released next Tuesday.  And October's data will be pushed back one week to Nov 8.
• more later....

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