The Mole submits: A choppy whippy day but US stocks rose Friday, with the Dow Jones erasing a 167-point drop in the final hour of trading, on speculation the European Union may propose a solution for Greece’s budget deficit. Oil, gold and copper rebounded, and the dollar pared its gain. The late day rally has been put down to short covering.
Overnight most Asian stocks fell, as losses at Panasonic (PC) and Casio Computer (CSIOY.PK) (both down over 4%) overshadowed gains by commodity companies after oil and metal prices increased. Ten Network Holdings, an Australian broadcaster, jumped 9.9% on speculation the government will cut industry license fees.
Looking ahead to this week, the focus in the US will be on Thursday’s January retail sales report, with the markets looking for a solid gain. The weekly jobless claims, due the same day, and Friday’s University of Michigan consumer sentiment report will shed further light on the household sector. As far as the business sector is concerned, I’ll be interested in Tuesday’s NFIB small business survey and Thursday’s business inventories report. As far as central bank comment is concerned, Fed Chairman Bernanke will testify before House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday (on the unwinding of the Fed’s emergency liquidity facilities). In Euroland the focus will be on the Q4 GDP flash estimated from across the region. 0.3% QoQ growth across the region as a whole is the expected read. French and Italian reports are also due. German’s December report, released on Friday, showed a sharp 2.6% MoM decline in output. In the UK the BoE will release its quarterly Inflation Report and December industrial production report. .
It’s been a very muted lackluster start Stateside today with little newsflow. CIT Group (CIT) is up after appointing former Merrill Lynch top dog John Thain as its new CEO, Home Depot (HD) is bid after a broker upgrade from Morgan Stanley (MS) and Motorola (MOT) could find support on the back of a Barron’s piece.