Market Review By TraderXP:
Apple Inc (AAPL) 's patents for pinch-to-zoom, bounce back and multitouch features of its iPhone are not invalid, at least for now.
"Apple patents were invalid by the court, and, of course, not the appellate court, so they are still enforceable," said Robert resistance Banner and Witcoff in Chicago, who is not involved in the case. "Just because it takes place in the patent office does not make them impractical."
Market News
Stock futures fall after Boehner "cliff" votes behind
Futures on U.S. stock indexes fell sharply after the Republican proposal to prevent "financial cliff" failed to gather enough support on Thursday, raising concerns lawmakers can not come to an agreement, putting the world's largest economy at risk of recession.
S & P 500 E-Mini futures contracts on the stock fell on the news in a matter of seconds - falling as much as 3.6 percent in a mini "Flash Crash", which even led to a trading halt March E-Mini futures contract because of a sharp move .
The market rebounded from there, but futures are still 1.5 per cent on 0400 GMT Friday. Dow Jones stock futures were down 1.6 percent and Nasdaq futures were down 1.5 percent.
"This is the night before the last day of the week - ahead of the weekend There is a lot of complacency in the market -. How many draws favorable" action "has become too comfortable in the last few weeks," said Doug Kass, founder of hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management Inc. in Palm Beach, Florida.
S & P 500 closed at 1,443.69 on Thursday, just a few points off the two-month high, driven largely by optimism that Washington lawmakers will find a way to avoid a series of $ 600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases to begin in 2013.
Late Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner acknowledged that his tax bill proposal to help prevent the "financial cliff" not enough votes to pass, leaving only 11 days for politicians to reach a deal.
Trading in the S & P E-Mini futures contracts, themost popularly traded futures on the CME, spiked as news broke, and as orders flooded the market.
Downward movement including falls by 15 points in March E-Mini Futures from 1407 to 1392 in less than one second, according to the Thomson Reuters-time sales data. This caused a halt in trading for 10 seconds before trading resumed.
Futures trading was resumed shortly after the order came back into the system. CME representative was not available for comment.
"It's basically stopped if a trade request comes in that will remove the rest in the order book," said Eric Hunsader, founder of the trading software and technology firm Nanex, who writes a blog where he often posts about the sudden, computer-controlled moving markets .
Increased threat
Reductions were designed to hit in a few months, not for years, and it is believed that this is a compressed set of actions will hit economic growth in the U.S. is difficult.
"This trust denter, as it happens in the important Christmas shopping period end - .. What it is not a positive activity for the Christmas sales Investors should look for a fall in the first quarter GDP forecasts Another risk that short-term, this event may accelerate the sales tax , "said Cass.
The bill, if it passed, would put Republicans on record in support of raising taxes on those earning more than $ 1 million a year, breaking with decades of orthodoxy. She received the blessing of influential anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, and other conservative groups vehemently against it, and many members of the rank and file, the file said they would not support it.
Boehner proposal is not expected to pass the Democratic held Senate and did not have the support of the White House, but the fact that the proposal can not even win passage of Republicans suggests that it would be difficult to agree on a bill that is close to President Barack Obama demands.
President Obama wants to raise taxes for families earning more than $ 400,000, well below the threshold.
"The impact on the markets will be entirely determined by the duration of the remains," said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG LLC in New York.
"The markets in particular, and the economy probably will not care all that much if it's just a show-off and a deal is reached. But if we stretch in the middle of January, it's hard to imagine that will not effect». Reuters. com
Currencies
The yen is still on the back foot at the end of the year comes the calm
Ian struggled near multi-month low against the dollar and the euro on Friday, on his way to clinch the title of the worst performing major currency in 2012, the last full trading week yeardraws end.
The yen was under pressure after the Bank of Japan expanded its asset purchase program is expected to 10 trillion yen ($ 1 trillion) on Thursday and signaled more actionahead including the establishment of higher inflation.
The dollar was at 84.36 yen, still within easy reach of a 20-month peak of 84.62 set earlier this week. Euro traded at 111.78 yen, near a 16-month high of 112.59. So far this year, thedollar grew by about 9 percent, the yen, while the single currency has risen more than 12 percent.
Traders expect the yen remains constrained, although further drawback was unlikely, given that marketsalready hold very bearish positions in the currency.
"Japanese calendar this hard for the last week of the year, including the November consumer price index and industrial production. Despite the soft data could put pressure on the yen, we believe that over the positioning offers only limited opportunities for further decline," said an analyst at BNP Paribas Vasily Serebryakov.
Traders said that the negotiations to avoid a "financial cliff" government spending cuts and tax increases in the United States remains a key risk for the markets in the last days of the year.
But investors were all hoping that a deal to prevent a financial cliff, be amazed, and even more convinced that the Mayan apocalypse will be just another myth.
All that drama helps to keep the dollar index. DXY from falling below the trough September 78.601 so far, although it remained dangerously close to 79.214.
Despite its own debt problems of the eurozone, the euro is on the way to the end of the year about 2 percent higher against the dollar. It was at $ 1.3251, near an eight-month high near $ 1.3309 set this week.
Recent positive developments in the euro area include long-awaited selection of the next tranche of aid to Greece, and the growth in the moral to the German company, which raised hopes Europe's largest economy will bounce back quickly after a weak end of 2012.
The Australian dollar also rose by 2.5 per cent on the dollar this year, despite four separate rate cuts. It was at $ 1.0482, having reached a high of $ 1.0857 in February. Reuters.com
