Don't blame yourself if you missed a few key things this week. Even with one eye on CNBC and the other on your Bloomberg terminal, it's likely you'd only remember news coming out of Europe.
First Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy met in Paris to discuss plans that would come up at Thursday's summit, sending markets higher.
Then, Standard & Poor's announced it was placing 15 Eurozone countries on credit watch. But that wasn't all. The ratings agency then put the EFSF on downgrade watch, and topped it off by adding the European Union to the list.
On Thursday, the European Central Bank cut its key interest rate 25 basis points, to 1.00%, while throwing cold water on the idea of a new bond-buying program. Finally, during the E.U. summit, leaders agreed to make a new financial pact that would regulate individual government spending and deficits and enforce sanctions on violators.
But that wasn't all that happened.
European PMI remains below 50, indicating a possible contraction
Eurozone PMI increased to 47.0 in November, up 50 basis points from a month earlier. Though the increase was welcome news for the region's producers, it remains below the metric indicating expansion. This follows news that jobless rates are beginning to tick up, with Italy's most recently increasing to 8.5%.
German factory orders jump 5.2% in October, higher than estimates
German factory orders surged 5.2% in October, reversing a surprise 4.6% decline seen this September. Analysts had forecast orders increasing by 1.0%. Demand was buttressed by international orders. Even as the country remains one of the few bright spots in the Eurozone, Germany's Bundesbank lowered 2012 expected growth to just 0.5% to 1.0%, from 1.8%.
Japanese machinery orders plunge 6.9% in October
The island nation faced further disappointing news this week when machinery orders fell nearly 7%, against predictions for a drop of just 0.5%. That follows an 8.2% dip during September. For the first time this year, core orders fell below 700 billion yen, or $9 billion. Japan's GDP rebounded during the third quarter, as spending on reconstruction, along with a resurgent consumer, jolted the economy back to life following the March 11 tsunami and earthquake. However, with depressed levels of production, growth is likely to stall.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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