The market is up 26. SFE Futures were up 12 this morning.

Dow Jones was up 4. The Dow was up 32 at best and down 33 at worst. US markets made only minor movements in Friday’s session taking the index to +16 points for the week. US personal income and spending came in came in below forecasts and the Chicago PMI came in slightly below the forecast but better than the previous reading. The Dow finished -71 points for the month of November, which was significantly better than October’s performance of -341 points. The Chinese PMI number was pretty good at the weekend. Up from 50.2 to 50.6 to a seven month high. Good, but its not really impacting markets. Feeds the theme (hope) that the Chinese growth decline has bottomed out. Chinese numbers this weekend — This weekend we have a host of Chinese numbers including probably the most highly watched number after GDP, industrial production. RBA — There’s an 83% chance of a rate cut tomorrow according to the futures market. No meeting in January so this has to last two months and there are some economists expecting another cut in March. Australian GDP numbers are on Wednesday — Est. +3.1% in September Q versus +3.7% in Q2 thanks to falling commodity prices, a high A$ and a cautious consumer over the Q they may not be that flash making the case for lower interest rates. US jobs numbers — on Friday will feed into the US economic recovery story. The numbers will be Hurricane Sandy affected with forecasts for a gain of 90,000 jobs. Metals up — Copper up 1.70%, Nickel up 3.95%, Aluminium up 5.12%, Lead up 0.22%. Over the week base metal prices were up between 2.8% and 6.3%. Aluminium and nickel were the best performers. Spot iron ore down $1.30 to $115.60 a tonne and lost $3.30 over the week.

  • The AIG performance of manufacturing index fell 1.6% to 43.6 in November. Australia’s manufacturing sector has contracted for the 9th month in a row.
  • The TD Securities/Melbourne Institute monthly inflation gauge fell 0.1% in November. Last month it rose by 0.1%. For the year inflation rose 2.5% which is in the middle of the RBA’s 2%-3% target range.
  • RP Data-Rismark report — Melbourne saw a 1% fall last month. A 1% rise was recorded in Perth, 1.1% in Darwin, 1.3% in Canberra, Adelaide and Brisbane had a 0.5% increase.
  • Company gross operating profits fell 2.9% in the September quarter. Gross operating profits were down 13% in the 12 months to September 2012. Estimated business inventories rose 1.1% in the September quarter. Economists were expecting a rise 0.4%.
  • Retail spending was unchanged in October at $21.563bn compared with $21.570bn in September. Economists were expecting a rise of 0.4% for October.
  • Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) – Has announced their first train departure from the Solomon iron ore mine bound for Port Hedland on the FMG Hamersley Line. FMG is down 2.69% to 380.5c.

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