It does not look like Japan will start the weekend out on a high note with the Nikkei losing 3% today to 8,200 suffering a seventh straight weekly loss. It has now lost 16% since its one year peak on March 27th. Financial were among the hard hit due to Spanish banking concerns.

The Japanese economy grew 1% in Q1 2012 helping prop the Nikkei 0.9% to close at 8,876.59.
Electronics had a good day with Toshiba up 5.6&, Sony up 3.9% and Panasonic up 3.5%.
The news did not translate over to China where the Hang Seng closed down 58.90 at 19,200.93. 

In afternoon action the FOMC minutes for the meeting of April 24-25th were released indicating only ambiguity on QU3. “The fed continues to state exceptionally low policy rates are likely through 2014, so the condition of a worsening economy in not happening, meaning QE3 will not be implemented.” The staff expects real GDP to “accelerate gradually” supported by further improvement in credit availability and increased consumer and business sentiment. The unemployment rate was expected to still be elevated through the end of 2014.
In Europe the FTSE Eurofirst was not able to overcome negative sentiment and was dragged to a loss of .05% by banks. Banks have dropped 18% in the last 3 months during Euro zone concerns. Spanish bank Bankia, which has been in many recent headlines, lost 11.1% after their delay in publishing first quarter results. Barclay’s has been riding out the storm and was rewarded to buy from neutral and enjoyed a 1.6% jump today.

Industrial production for April beat expectations and help to overcome a -0.6% in March jumping to 1.1%. This should translate positively into the market.
Crude, distillates and gasoline inventory were all down again in the latest petroleum status report this morning marking a 13th straight for gasoline. Both gasoline and distillates are in the lower boundary of their historic range.
The Dow, Nasdaq and S&P are all currently at a plus of under .25%.

The Asian markets send bad news our way with both the Nikkei and Hang Seng down. The Nikkei has now fallen 14% since hitting a one year high on March 27th and the Hang Seng took a big blow dropping over 3.5% both due to flat bank lending in China. European shares also found new lows still based on Greece fears. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 fell .7%, Spain’s IBEX 35 fell .6% and Italy’s FTSE MIB dropped .2%. Xstrata and Glencore stocks both were hit with a UBS downgrade to neutral and their stocks are down 4% and 2.9% respectively.