5 Things to Know Before Trading

Stocks were strong throughout Asia. Shanghai was up about 1.8%, the Hang Seng and the Nikkei both had a gain of one and a half percent and Australia added three quarters of a percent. European indexes are also showing a gain this morning, with the Footsie higher by three quarters of a percent and the Dax is higher by about 0.6%. US stock futures are up about a third of a percent.

*The Reserve Bank of Australia saw their monetary policy as “mildly restrictive” , according to the minutes from their latest policy meeting. And they also noted at their December 7 meeting that household borrowing was restrained, but they thought their policy was appropriate given the high terms of trade.

*The Bank of Japan held steady on their key overnight rate at 0.10% and also kept their asset purchase and credit-loan program totals steady, at their meeting earlier today, as expected. They said that the economy’s recovery seems to be pausing and will likely grow at a slower pace for some time.

*The October reading of Japan’s All Industry Activity Index is -0.2% on a month on month basis, as was forecast.

*German Consumer Confidence Index dipped one tenth to 5.4, but had been expected to increase a couple of tenths; it’s the first downtick since June.

*The November reading of Switzerland’s Trade Balance was a surplus of SF1.93 billion, down from the October surplus of SF2.05 billion; Exports were down 3.4% from the month before and Imports were lower by 3.3%.

*The weekly report on chain store sales from ICSC showed an increase of 1.7% on a week on week basis for the week ended December 18 and that sales were up 4.2% for the week when compared to a year ago. The Johnson Redbook report on the same thing is due out at 7:55am CST.

*The Fed is again doing double duty on Treasury purchases. In the morning they are scheduled to buy Treasuries that are due to mature between 6/30/16 and 11/30/17; the results of this operation will be announced just after 10:00am CST. In the afternoon the Fed is scheduled to buy TIPS that are due to mature between 7/15/12 and 2/15/40; the results of this operation will be announced just after 1:00pm CST.

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