After a leg up in the 2nd half of July, Dow is heading back down to 11K. Dow is down 98, decliners over advancers 4-1 & NAZ dropped 17. News driving away buyers remains the same, the economy is struggling at best.
Wholesale prices for July rocketed ahead 1.2%, highest rate since 1981. The core rate increased 0.7%, again much higher than expectations. The Commerce Dept reported
housing construction fell 17.7% in July to the worst performance in more than 17 years. No surprise, housing remains in the firm grips of its most severe slump since the great depression. Going forward, grim inflation numbers should be less severe as moderating oil, metals & farm prices work there way thru to consumer inflation. However, even these numbers should be high enough to be worrisome.
Corp news doesn't get better.
4 major retailers are feeling a lot of pain at retail. But they're not alone in today's big sell-off. The S&P Financial Index continues to pull back, flirting with its low for the last 30 days:
Value ..267.78___ Change.. (7.78)Gloomy thoughts about the future of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac even hurt Asian markets last night. Oil is having a quiet down, down pennies in the 112s. Bigger picture, it has fallen 35 points from the high reached just a few weeks ago.
The last 2 weeks in Aug are generally quiet times in markets. 10 years ago markets sold off, but that was the exception. With continuing problems in banking, housing, retail, etc., this vacation period may be another downer.
No comments:
Post a Comment