Morning Memo: Tuesday, November 26, 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...lower across the board on little in the way of news.
• Japan..Nikkei hits profit taking as the Yen strengthens vs the USD.  Also, BOJ minutes from Oct. 31 meeting show more disparity of views on the economic outlook and on the likely success of hitting a 2% inflation target by '15.  Some wanted to water down the language of the BOJ's communique to reflect some uncertainty about actually hitting that target by then as opposed to just being "within sight of".
• Australia....the AUD rallied, reversing some of the losses of recent days which happened on the heels of RBA Gov Stevens' talk last week indicating the possibility that the RBA would intervene if the AUD strengthened too much.  Comments last night by an RBA Deputy Gov Lowe indicated that intervention level is sometime off.
• China...dispute with Japan over islands has been heating up with China's recent announcement that they're increasing their air-defense zone to include the disputed islands.
• China...regulators have been circulating a draft of a reform measure aimed at reducing excess credit risk in the system by limiting inter-bank lending, a process that has been exploited by banks to increase the amount of loans that they make to corporations without having to post the requisite reserves against such loans.  
• Thailand...demonstrations continue against the government over the exiled former PM Thaksin (favored by the rural population, not by urban).  Attempts by his sister, the current PM, to introduce legislation that would allow him to return has sparked a wave of demonstrations, sending equities and the Thai Bhat lower.
• Europe...markets generally lower.
• Norway...consumer confidence drops to lowest level since Dec '11 on recent fall in housing prices which had previously gone up close to 70% since '05.
• Italy...consumer confidence rose in November, but fell on future outlook for the Eurozone.
• Oil...after falling hard yesterday on the news of the agreement w/Iran on their nuclear program, has recovered much of the loss.
• US...housing data awaited.
• more later.... 

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