Strong risk appetite is seen in the financial markets as another holiday-shortened week starts. Major Asian equities are recording gains with HK HSI up as much as 2%. But Nikkei 225 lags behind and pared initial gain to be flat at the time of writing. That followed last week's rally in US stocks where DJIA and S&P 500 made record closes of 18053.71 and 2088.77 respectively on Friday. Other markets were pretty steady instead. Gold recovered from last week's dip but is still struggling to get through 1200 handle. Crude oil continues to trade is tight range above recent low of 53.60. The dollar index breached 90 last week but is struggling to stay firmly above this level so far.
In the currency markets, Euro is soft against other major currencies as markets await the a vote in Greek parliament later today. This is the third time that Greek prime minister Anotonis Samaras tries to secure over 180 votes in the 300 seat parliament to confirm president in for the country. Samaras failed twice on the ballot on December 17 and 23 already. Failure to confirm the president candidate, Stavros Dimas, could trigger a snap election in late January or early February. And if that happens, the far left Syriza party is forecast by analysts to win the election and it has openly vowed to renegotiate the bailout terms with troika. And, that could bring back the concerns over the stability in Greece as well as in Eurozone.
Elsewhere, Swiss UBS consumption indicator is the main feature in a relatively empty economic calendar today. On Tuesday, UK nationwide house price, Eurozone M3, US S&P Case Shiller house price and conference board consumer confidence will be released. On Wednesday, US jobless claims, Chicago PMI and pending home sales will be featured. China manufacturing PMI is the feature on January 1st, Thursday. Friday would be busy with Eurozone manufacturing PMI, UK manufacturing PMI and US ISM manufacturing scheduled to be released.