By Justin Turner CIM, DMS®, CFP®
Stock markets around the world took a breather as European bank worries caused investors to take profits. The return of the dreaded PIIGS acronym is unsettling, especially after what happened in 2011. Most of the worry is due to Portuguese Banco Espirito Santo having trouble making payments on its debt and so far most of the fear has been isolated to the PIIGS countries sending their markets lower and bond yields higher. Flight to safety has caused German bond yields to do the exact opposite reaching record lows.
North American markets fell during the week but still
managed to finish close to their all-time highs. The TSX managed to stay
above the 15,000 mark although energy names continued to sell off falling 2.8%
on the week while materials were able to partially offset that, rallying 1.9%
during the week due to increased demand for gold caused by the aforementioned
European worries. This week could be an important one with stock markets,
gold and oil all hovering around important technical levels.
The big news this week includes Wednesday's Bank of Canada rate announcement and earnings from various US blue chip names including IBM, Intel, Yahoo and JP Morgan just to name a few. The Bank of Canada is likely to keep the overnight rate at 1% but investors will be on the look out for any change in language that could give clues as to what the next move could be.
