IMF Seeks to Increase Bailout Fund
19-01-2012
Asian stocks are up this morning in response to the positive news that the IMF is seeking to increase its bailout fund resources by 1 trillion USD. It is not immediately clear where this massive influx of cash will come from, but investors are nevertheless buoyed by the prospect. The MSCI gauge increase by 0.9 percent, while the Hang Seng was up by 1.6 percent. Commodities are also on the rise in trading today thus far, with Gold up by 0.27%, currently at 1664.45 and Crude Oil up by 0.75%, trading at 101.52 USD per barrel.
Keystone pipeline project squashed
The price of oil is on the rise in part because of President Barak Obama’s controversial decision to block the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Keystone would have brought oil from the tar pits in Alberta into the United States and drastically decreased American dependence on oil from less stable sources, such as the Middle East. Environmentalist rallied to oppose what they deemed to be catastrophic for the environment, while proponents of Keystone argued that the economy desperately needs the millions of jobs that Keystone would have created. TransCanada Corp., the country behind the Keystone project will be able to reapply according to the President.
Today’s economic calendar
It is a very busy day in the United States with four reports of great importance scheduled for release. At 1:30 pm GMT the Building Permits, Core CPI and Unemployment Claims will all be released. At 3:00 pm the Philly Fed Manufacturing Index will become available. Arguably the most important report is the Unemployment Claims, which measures the amount of individuals who filed for unemployment insurance for the first time during the past week. The Unemployment Claims report from the previous week failed to meet analyst forecast, coming in at almost twenty thousand higher than anticipated. This morning two important stats in Australia became available. Both the Employment Change and Unemployment Rate remain relatively unchanged from the previous month.
Investors leaving the greenback
With the positive news from the IMF, investors turned to stocks and abandoned the American Dollar. Despite the high risk appetite by investors, the greenback rallied near the end of Asian trading. The EUR/USD is down 0.101% at 1.2851, while the GBP/ USD is down by 0.78%, currently sitting at 1.5427. Indices are up all across the board, with the highest gains posted by the NQ 100, 1.37% increase at 2425.96, and the EU Stoxx50 up by 1.23% at 2390.64.
