Morning Memo: Monday, November 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...China announced a 60-point plan outlining reforms that were agreed at the Communist Party Plenum that concluded earlier last week.  The plan was released late Friday so markets were reacting for the first time.  China's Shanghai and the Hong Kong markets reacted very positively to reforms that indicated a very central role for markets in the economy, reforms to land ownership by farmers, opening up of the doors to foreign investment through broadening of the pilot Shanghai Free Trade Zone, some liberalization of interest rate and bank policies and a relaxing of the one-child rule.  Timing?  TBD!!
• China...Home prices continue to soar!  Up over 9% nationally, but double digits in major cities.
• Japan...Nikkei ends close to flat on little news and on the USD coming off last week's highs.
  
• Thailand..Q3 GDP slower than expected @ 2.7% y/y vs 2.9% exp.  The silver lining in the data was that q/q numbers were up, reversing the technical recession that was evidenced by Q1 and Q2 both being negative m/m.  Thailand is a big exporter of rice, cars and electronics, so GDP is watched closely as a measure of global demand.
• Eurozone...Current Account Surplus narrows in September.  Balance of Payments data from the ECB showed a net outflow of payments (approx 12B Euro) from the Eurozone in September vs inflows in August (approx Euro 17B).  The ECB said this was the result of net purchases by EZ residents of equities outside the EZ, more than the increase in net inflows by non-EZ residents into EZ money market instruments.
• Iran...nuclear talks stay in focus as Israel ramps up its angst over the potential inadequacy of the deal in thwarting Iran's nuclear weapon production ability.
•  Of interest:

China agreed to loosen its one-child policy, but changes could come slowly. http://t.co/JTxZdSPnFb pic.twitter.com/WpyKuD0rEC
— WSJ Asia (@WSJAsia) November 18, 2013

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• more later....

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