Eagle Eye Opener: Fiscal Cliff Joins Y2K as Non-Event; Far East Markets Jump; European Markets Rise

Fiscal Cliff Joins Y2K as World’s Biggest Non-Event (YahooFinance.com)

In a move that helped overseas stock markets, President Obama and enough House Republicans that matter put together a deal to avert the fiscal cliff. Each side did concede points to ensure a middle ground that would enable almost everyone to come out looking good in the eyes of Americans. Obama gave up the $250,000 income threshold for declaring U.S. citizens as rich and agreed that $450,000 would be the joint-income level that would subject those wealthy couples to the onerous 39.6 percent tax rate. Republicans lived to fight another day by getting the president to agree to move back $110 billion in discretionary cuts to a debate in two months. Next up, seeing exactly how long a “debate in two months” takes to resolve. Until then, global markets can move ahead.

Far East Markets Start 2013 with “Green Slate” (Bloomberg)

Buoyed by the fiscal cliff agreement reached by the U.S. government on Jan. 1, East Asian markets kicked off the profit parade early Wednesday. With green numbers almost across the board in the region, Japan’s Nikkei ended up .70 percent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng finished ahead 2.89 percent and the Shanghai Composite topped 1.61 percent gains by day’s end. The only markets seemingly not to get the good news — ending the day in the red — were FTSE Bursa Malaysia, New Zealand Exchange 50 and the Karachi Stock Exchange in Pakistan (shocker).

European Investors Laud Fiscal Cliff Deal (YahooFinance.com)

In an attempt to one-up their East Asian counterparts, European markets are on the rise today. At the time of this writing, every major European market was in the green, with the lone hold out being the Bloomberg EMEA World Index, down just slightly. The FTSE currently sits at a 2.16 percent gain; France’s CAC 40 nestles on a 2.29 percent rise and Germany’s DAX notches a 2.16 percent uptick. Stay tuned for more jubilation to fill the markets — at least this week.