STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 17 January 2014

[Ghost Dog]

39. European shares top five-year highs as periphery rally continues

European shares reached a new 5-1/2 year high on Friday as a third weekly gain on the spin for Portuguese and Spanish bonds fed improving sentiment in the region's Mediterranean rim... London's FTSE .FTSE, Paris's CAC 40 .FCHI and Frankfurt's Dax .GDAXI all made gains and bourses in Portugal, Italy .FTMIB and Spain .IBEX continued their red hot streak to leave the region heading for its fourth week of gains in five...

... After a brief early breather, euro zone bond markets also continued their rally as Portuguese and Spanish government bonds added to a third week of strong gains...

... Applying some pressure on the bond market rally was a third spike in as many months in overnight euro money market rates, which left them above the normal ceiling of the European Central Bank's main 0.25 percent borrowing rate.

The move up has been driven by a sharp drop in the amount of spare cash sloshing around the euro zone banking system. Banks have paid back almost half the 1 trillion euros the ECB pumped into markets at the height of the euro crisis...

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/17/us-markets-global-idUSBRE96S00E20140117