Northern, WI 1/23/2012 (
Streetbeat) -- Stock were generally little changed in the countries that were open for business today; remember the New Year holiday is being celebrated this week in China and many other places as well. Australia lost a third of a percent today and the Nikkei was unchanged. European indexes are mostly higher this morning, with the Footsie better by about three quarters of a percent and the Dax is up about a half percent. US stock futures are up a slight fraction.
*The Q4 reading of Australia’s Producer Price Index was +0.3%, one tenth under the forecast.
*A pro-euro former Fin Min, Sauli Niinistoe, who led Finland into the euro in 1999 won the first round of that country’s presidential race on Sunday. He got 37% of the vote and will run off in early February against the second place finisher, also pro-euro, Pekka Haavisto, who took 18.8% of the votes.
*EU Fin Mins are meeting in Brussels today and tomorrow. They may discuss running the EFSF and ESM side by side for a while, at least that is the chatter out of Germany. But one thing they won’t discuss is a completed deal on PSI cooperation in a Greek debt swap, since that is not yet been finalized.
*IMF boss Lagarde spoke in Berlin earlier this morning. She says the world is at a “defining moment” to avoid recession, but thinks the world can avoid a “1930s moment”, and she reiterated the need to “step up the Fund’s lending capacity”, $500 billion still sounds right, in part to establish a firewall for Italy and Spain. She also foreshadowed the IMF global outlook, due to be released tomorrow; says growth will be revised downward.
*The Fed is scheduled to buy Treasuries today that are due to mature between 8/15/22 and 2/15/31; the results of the operation will be announced just after 10:00am CST.