Market Recon: 12/11/2012

Stephen J. Guilfoyle “Sarge”, is the U.S. Economist at Meridian Equity Partners since 2007. Stephen joined Meridian after a long career at Credit Suisse. Stephen has worked on the trading floor of the NYSE continuously since July 1987 and actively serves as a Sergeant in the National Guard.

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Good Morning,

Surprise, surprise, S&P futures are up a bit the day before a Fed meeting. Seen this one a couple of times now, huh? Actually there is more to it than that today. You’ll notice that today’s strength seems to be coming out of Europe. With the future of Italy now an unknown quantity, why would that be? Well, the December ZEW Surveys of Economic Sentiment were released this morning for Germany, and the EMU, and in both cases, the number printed in the positive for the first time in six and seven months respectively, and way above expectations. This is a six month forward looking diffusion index of institutional investors and analysts. These “experts” are suddenly and surprisingly optimistic after many months in the negative, and that my friends is interesting.

It is Tuesday, and as on all Tuesdays, traders of the retailers will grapple with Goldman Store Sales at 07:45 ET, and the Redbook at 08:55 ET. We’ll see October’s Trade Balance for both the U.S. and Canada at 08:30 ET. The U.S. projection here is for $-42.8 billion, with a range of $-44.6 B to $-41 B. September printed at $-41.5 billion. As for Canada, expect a number around C$-1.2 billion, down from September’s C$-0.8 billion. At 10am ET, look for October Wholesale Trade to have increased by 0.4% month over month, after September’s growth of 1.1%.. The range today is anywhere from flat to +0.7%.

In Japan, the Tertiary Index is due for October at 18:50 ET. Today, we look for contraction of -0.3%, after the growth of +0.3% seen in September. There are no headline level quarterly earnings releases scheduled for today. There is a late night speaker that Oceanic traders may wish to be cognizant of. At 23:30 ET, Reserve Bank Of Australia Gov. Glenn Stevens will speak from Bangkok, Thailand.

With the FOMC widely expected to announce additional stimulus tomorrow, there could be some volatility today, even if the volume remains as light as it was yesterday. Could be an interesting couple of days for the Forex crowd.

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This post originally appeared at  Guilfoyle’s Market Recon.  

Follow the Sarge on Twitter here: @Sarge986