Recap: Week Ending November 29, 2013

The majority of global equity markets traded with little conviction in either direction as they continue to trade at their all time highs. After hitting fresh all time highs Friday, both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 closed nearly unchanged for the week. The lack of direction in these indices can be attributed to the shorter trading week due to the US Thanksgiving holiday. Financial markets in the US were closed Thursday and closed early on Friday for the long weekend celebrations. The holiday did not help the daily trading ranges, which appear to be shrinking on an intraday basis. The Toronto Stock Exchange index, TSX, closed well into the negative on the week. The downturn in the TSX comes as the index traded at its highs for the year for over the past month. The TSX is predominantly made up of agricultural, metals and energy companies. As the price of these underlying commodities falls, the TSX commonly falls along side them. As the price of both metals and energies has come down dramatically recently, the TSX has held up, trading at yearly highs. If the price of oil and gold were to rise, the TSX would push upwards into uncharted territory on the year. Despite other major indexes struggling with upside activity, the NASDAQ 100 climbed higher to close at a 13 year high. The index continues to drive higher as tech continues to climb higher for the year. The rally in tech has been led higher by some big names including, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, Priceline.com and of course Apple. As these major companies continue to move in unison to the upside, the roof on the NASDAQ appears to be inexistent. The Russell tracks the 2000 most active small caps stocks listed on exchanges in the United States. The index has outperformed all others, returning over 36% this year, and 41% from this time last year. So far this year the Russell has paved the way into higher highs as other US major indices lagged.

In Europe the German DAX closed for the week at all time highs. For the year, the DAX has returned over 23% as Germany continues to be one of the stronger countries in the European Union at the moment. As the interest rate environment continues to be unclear in the UK, the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 or FTSE 100 closed negative on the week. Ever since the start of November the FTSE has not been able to climb higher despite other many European indexes closing higher. Despite uncertainty in the UK the DAX has been able to push higher, once the FTSE catches bid, the DAX will trade with conviction to the upside.

The upcoming week is fairly heavy with Canadian economic releases. Wednesday both the import and export data will be released for the month of October. Wednesday will also see the release the Bank of Canada interest rate decision, the current rate of 1% is expect to remain unchanged. On Thursday, the Canadian building permits figure will be released as well as the Ivey Purchasing Managers Index for the month of November. To close the week on Friday the Canadian unemployment figure is going to be released. The figure is expected to tick up from 6.9% to 7% for the month of November. At the same time, the US will release its unemployment figure for the month of November. The figure is expected to tick down form 7.3% to 7.2%.