Economic Data and Oil Prices (27-05-2008)

After the Memorial Day weekend, U.S. stocks futures for Tuesday were pointing downwards with investors waiting for the consumer confidence and sales of new homes reports to gain insight on the economy’s outlook. 

Earlier markets in the Asia Pacific region rose across the board with very few exceptions, as electronics stocks led by Samsung boosted Seoul and bargain hunting lifted stocks in Japan led by exporters and banks that had slumped a day earlier. 

The euro was hurt by deterioration in consumer sentiment and the dollar regained some ground as investors were expecting new home sales to have risen in the previous month, while crude oil prices remained in the $133 per barrel region after the latest violence in Nigeria.

European markets pared early gains on Vodafone and Infineon as fears of further writedowns by banks caused the financial sector to stumble. Talk of banks having funding problems was exacerbated by EBC figures showing that a bank or banks borrowed 538 million euros from the central bank on Monday, which rekindled fears about the health of the financial system.

  Source ISFM