American markets, like most around the world, finished the week with solid gains and will be looking for a bit more this week.
News that three more US banks failed over the weekend won’t impact sentiment.
That takes this year’s failures to 123.
US investors are now ignoring news of financial problems, secure in the knowledge that if the banks are middling to small they will fail and someone will buy.
And if they are bigger banks, then the government will make sure no one is hurt.
But keep a close watch on bond insurers, such as MBIA and Ambac Assurance.
The latter has to file financial statements with US regulators by tonight our time.
These troubled insurers are starting to edge back into the news.
But also keep a weather eye on commodity markets.
Apart from gold, they are looking a bit stressed and being driven more by the weak US dollar than demand.
Copper is trading in a stale range and can’t break above $US3 a pound, and grains are being hit by the huge harvest in the US.
Oil prices should have finished the weak stronger, but they didn’t.
In terms of risk, it looks like equities are out their on their own now.
US shares had a second straight weekly advance.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.6% Friday to end at 1,093.48.
The Dow gained 73 points, or 0.7%, to 10,270.47. Nasdaq was up 0.9% to 2167
The S&P 500 added 2.3% last week, the Dow 2.5%, and Nasdaq 2.6%.
The S&P 500 is up 21.1% for the year so far, a vast improvement over last year’s 38.5% slump.
Since the March lows, the S&P 500 has jumped 61.6% as of Friday’s close.
The strong finish Friday night on Wall Street came despite another poor report on US consumer sentiment, with the first reading from the Reuters/University of Michigan survey showing a dip to 66 from 70.6 in October.
Markets had been expecting a rise.
The dollar fell over the week and wasn’t helped by Friday’s news that the October trade deficit was much larger than forecast at $US36.5 billion in September; that was up 18% from August’s $30 billion.
That was the highest trade deficit since January.
The 15% fall in the value of the dollar this year is starting to have an impact on imports which were up 5.8%, but not on exports which rose by around 3%.
US economists say that will cut the US third quarter growth estimates to around 3% annual from the first figure of 3.5% (0.9% quarter on quarter).
Lower consumer spending will probably see a further trim.
The S&P 500 reached its 2009 high on November 11.
Meanwhile, according to Thomson Reuters, 80% of S&P 500 companies which have released results exceeded the average analyst estimate for third-quarter earnings per share.
Stocks in Europe advanced as the euro region’s economy emerged from recession in the third quarter.
The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index rose 2.8% and national indexes advanced in all 18 western European markets, except Greece and Iceland.
The UK’s FTSE 100 was up 3% and France’s CAC 40 added 2.7%.
Germany’s DAX added 3.6%.
Asian share markets ended mixed Friday.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Average lost 0.4% to 9,770.31.
Taiwan’s Taiex and South Korea’s Kospi gave up 0.1% each.
New Zealand’s NZX 50 shed 0.4% and Philippines’ main index lost 1.3%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index ended up 0.7%.
At the close, the benchmark the ASX 200 index was down 41.5 points for the day, or 0.9%, at 4706.4, while the broader All Ordinaries lost 35.6 points, or 0.7%, to 4722.6.
The ASX200 index was up about 2.4% for the week.
That was its first gain in three weeks.
Kathmandu’s shares opened at $1.77 on Friday and finished at $1.76, compared with its public offer price of $1.70.
Myer shares have still to reach their issue price of $4.10.
