ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK:
-The upbeat US economic numbers released during the week helped in mildly easing the concerns about the performance of the US economy thereby helping revive entire base metals complex. This was another consecutive week when US economic data bettered off. The country’s November housing starts increased to 1187 thousand that was higher than the markets expectation of 1175 thousand. Building permits for November came at 1152 K as against the consensus of 1150 K. US consumer spending in November increased as against that expected.
- The People's Bank of China hiked China’s one-year benchmark deposit rate by 27 basis points to 4.14% and raised the one-year lending rate by 18 basis points to 7.47 %. It was the sixth hike by China this year and was adopted as a measure to curb inflation resulting from its overheating economy. In the Eurozone, Italy’s industrial orders in October rose 8.4% on year from the markets consensus of 4.8%.
- The dollar weakened against its major rivals in thin trading conditions at the weekend’s session, despite strong U.S. consumer spending data and a higher than expected core inflation figure that showed fading chances of further interest rate cut by the Fed. Dollar index slipped down 0.1% to 77.70.
- Crude oil recovered smartly as shrinking US crude supplies, geopolitical tensions in Middle East and easing concerns over credit crisis supported the crude oil prices. However, forecasts of warmer weather conditions in the US in January added some weakness in the market. Nymex WTI January crude traded in the range of $87.09-94.85 a barrel during the week before closing at $89.27 per barrel with a gain of $2.2.
- The American equity markets gained on mostly upbeat US economic numbers. The DJIA advanced by 0.8% or 110.8 points to close at 13,450.65 against prior week’s close of 13,339.85. NASDAQ gained 56.25 points or 2.13% to end at 2,691.99 as against previous week’s close of 2,635.74. In European markets FTSE 100 added 37.10 points to close at 6,434.10.
Click here to download full report
Reliance Money Disclaimer