The weekend wrapup 1.21.12

Americas:

• US markets clocked in another week in the green (its third in a row) as the S&P rose another 2%, the DOW another 2.4%, while the NASDAQ climbed 2.8%. Awesome. A few surveys however are pointing out that retail investors as well as financial advisers are largely bullish, meaning that the public is now in on this. Ugh.

• It wasn’t just the US that scored though; Canada’s TSX index also gained 1.32%, rate cuts in Brazil sent its index 9% higher for the month, 16.4% for Argentina’s Merval, while Mejico’s IPC was up 2% for the week.

• Manufacturing numbers surprise to the upside while jobless claims fall and home sales rise. Confidence is also on the up and inflation seems to have settled. Earnings however have been a pretty meh, with only 47% beating analyst’s estimates (lowest since the credit crisis).

Europe:

• Europe also did pretty well with the FTSE gaining 1.6%, 4.3% for the DAX, and 2.7% for GREECE.

• Speaking of Greece, committee members have conceded that negotiations are unlikely to wrap up in time for the March 20th bond repayment.

• It’s not all that bad though; Euribor-OIS spreads are at a low, same with money market funding (lowest in 5 months), and yields on Spanish and Italian 2 years have dropped enough for their curves to normalize. A little. Is a recovery really on the way?

Asia:

• Asian markets also soared; the Nikkei 225 closed at an 11-week high while the Hang Seng gained 8.2% for the month, its best since ’89. Australia fared pretty well as well, up 1% higher for the week.

• The PBOC stepped in and injected $29 billion of cash to their banks, cutting down short-term borrowing costs as well as boosting balance sheets in light of a holiday liquidity squeeze. Meanwhile, GDP growth figures fell to its lowest in almost 3 years, but still beat estimates. Inflation and the overall suckiness of their RE market however, remains pretty high.

That’s it for the meantime, here’s my clip of the week:

Ok, so apparently I couldn't embed it and I'm too lazy to try and make it work so here's the link:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/12097

It's Goldman's Jim O'Neill on Charlie Rose discussing emerging economies, Europe, China, and a host of other things like Occupy Wall Street. Pretty good stuff.

Have a good one monkeys.