Eagle Eye Opener: China’s Services’ PMI Drops to Lowest Score in 20 Months; Far East Markets Strengthen

China’s Services’ PMI Drops to Lowest Score in 20 Months (Reuters)

Investors and analysts looking to bash China in 2013 seem to have no end of data to use. Most recently, the growth — or rather, the slowing growth — in China’s service sector can be held up as evidence of the great economic engine’s slowdown. Specifically, the HSBC services’ Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) fell to 51.1 — more than three points off of March’s 54.3 — and its lowest level of growth since August 2011. Perhaps most telling, the survey that produces the Index score found that the sector’s staffing levels fell for the first time since 2009. So, is this the real beginning of the Chinese economic backslide…

Laws of Physics Work Again: Far East Markets Strengthen (Bloomberg)

Asian markets are the first to embrace last Friday’s better-than-expected U.S. unemployment news — but that’s always the case, given the direction the Earth spins. Regardless, Far Eastern investors shared their love — with green numbers almost across the board. Notable exceptions are, of course, Japan – still determined to take down the yen, Thailand and the Philippines. But China’s lapping up the news: both the Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 and Hong Kong Hang Seng were up nearly a full percentage point — and they were the laggards today in the world’s second-largest economy. We’ll see if the world follows suit — in market news, that is…

Earnings Reports 140 Characters at a Time (MarketWatch)

Social media investors should take note that it looks like the next 800 lb. digital gorilla to try an initial public offering (IPO) could be Twitter. At least, that’s one conclusion to draw from Twitter retaining Morgan Stanley Investment Banker Cynthia Gaylor “to run its corporate department.” To date, she’s worked on deals for Facebook, LinkedIn and Netflix. Given those three groups’ varying experiences with going public, investors themselves will have to decide how to digest that news. Of course, that all may be a moot point, if you can take co-founder Jack Dorsey at his word, when he stated, the company’s “not even thinking” about floating shares.  So, will actions or words win out at Twitter? Guess we’ll learn 140 characters at a time…