Morning Memo: Friday, December 20, 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...mixed markets.
• Japan...opened lower but came back to close higher on softer Yen and BOJ meeting ending w/no change in policy.
• China...lower on continued concerns over short-term interest rates rising to levels not seen in months and raising fears of another rate spike as was seen last June.This is despite cash injections into the market by the PBOC.
• Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia...all saw their currencies fall on the heels of Fed tapering.
• Gold...after falling to a three-year low, gold bounced over night, but is still down close to 30% ytd.
• Europe....S&P cut the European Union's surpranational rating one notch from AAA to AA+ citing budget issues and recent downgrades to member states.
• Germany....consumer sentiment index hits six-year high.
• UK..household spending growth in Q3 highest in five years.  Also, Q3 GDP's third estimate was unched @ + 0.8%.  Annualized growth was revised up to 1.9% from 1.5%.  Consumer confidence, unlike Germany, fell.
• Portugal...the high court rejects pension plan cuts, which could create issues for Portugal's attempt to exit from bailout.
• Turkey...Lira falls to a new low vs USD on rising political concerns over an anti-corruption investigation of four govt ministers and others.  Fed tapering has also raised concerns about funding the current account deficit as the Lira falls.
• European stocks have best week since April.
• more later....
• LATER
• US Q3 GDP third revision better than expected, revised up to 4.1% from 3.6% with real final sales (excluding inventory) higher than expected!

Solid GDP Revision Shows Stronger Underlying Growth Trends http://t.co/1EU9njzMbI
— Briefing.com (@Briefingcom) December 20, 2013

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