MAY 2012

The end of an awful month! Looking at June the worry is that the causes of May’s downturn (failed performance of Southern European economies, with consequences for growth in China and USA) have not been fixed. G20 opinion (including IMF and ECB) is that the problems affecting the eurozone can only be addressed by eurozone leaders.

EUROPE

Eurozone

Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank considers the current structure of the eurozone to be “unsustainable”, criticising political leaders for indecision, procrastination and half measures. [More].

Spain

The drain of deposits from Southern European banks continues. Spain’s central bank has reported that investors withdrew EUR66bn in Mar 2012, twice the previous monthly record of EUR34bn in Dec 2011. [More].

USA MARKET

Economy

• Private Sector Job Growth: ADP Payrolls estimate that 133,000 private sector jobs were created in May 2012, below the expectation of 150,000.
• Unemployment: Initial jobless claims rose to 383,000 last week from 373,000 the week before. Official unemployment numbers will be released tomorrow.

Commodities

• Gold Futures (Jun): down $0.80 to $1,563/oz
• Oil Futures (WTI LSC Jul): down $1.29 to $86.53/barrel.

Treasury yields

Yields continue to fall to record lows:

• 30-year: 2.65%, down from 2.71% yesterday
• 10-year: 1.56% – new record low, down from 1.62% yesterday
• 5-year: 0.66%, down from 0.69 yesterday

Market moving news

• JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley had a terrible month, down 22.9% and 22.7% respectively.

Share market indices

• S+P 500: 1,310 -0.22%
• DJIA: 12,394 -0.21%
• NASDAQ: 2,827 -0.35%

Tech stock price movements

• Substantial rises (more than 2.0%)
  • Zynga [NASDAQ:ZNGA]: up 6.64% to $6.26
  • Facebook [NASDAQ:FB]: up 5.00% to $29.60
• Substantial falls (more than 2.0%)
  • Netflix [NASDAQ:NFLX]: down 5.79% to $63.44
  • Groupon [NASDAQ:GRPN]: down 4.14% to $10.64
  • Micron [NASDAQ:MU]: down 2.50% to $5.84
  • Linkedin [NYSE:LNKD]: down 2.18% to $95.99
  • Rackspace [NYSE:RAX]: down 2.08% to $49.37

PORTFOLIO

Portfolio Index

• Portfolio Index (USD): 1.024 -0.31%
• AUD 1.00 = USD 0.9780 +0.15%
• Portfolio Index (AUD): 1.047 -0.46%

Tech stock news

• Facebook [NASDAQ:FB] reached a post IPO low of $26.30 today, down 30.8% from its IPO price of $38 just 9 days ago (18 May 2012). FB bounced off that floor to close UP 5% at $29.60. Zynga [NASDAQ:ZNGA] rose with FB, up 6.64% to $6.26.

NASDAQ

• Apple [AAPL] $577.73 -0.25%
• Amazon [AMZN] $212.91 +1.76%
• Google [GOOG] $580.86 -1.25%

NYSE

• Linkedin [LNKD] $96.10 -2.07%
• VMware [VMW] $93.01 -1.79%