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InvestmentHouse Weekend Update 7/11/08:

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Gloom hits full bore and market sells, but it does not implode.
- Stock market in turmoil, bond market bucks the trend Friday.
- VIX starts to run after more than a week of market volatility.
- Import prices spiking and trade balance shrinking as we import more inflation and buy less foreign goods as our prosperity slips
- No one stepping up to deliver any meaningful energy policy.
- Set up for a washout early this week, but without oil breaking down it is only short term.

More financial, oil issues rough up stocks yet again.

Plenty of bad news yet again greeted stocks in the morning. Once more FRE and FNM were under fire; when a story starts on an institution (e.g. BSC), it doesn't seem to go away until something breaks or fixes it. Friday the NY Times ran an article saying it was a distinct possibility that the two mortgage giants would become government property. Investors were understandably mortified at the thought even though the two institutions have not proved themselves as bastions of sound judgment and management. Fear was something would happen similar to BSC and on Monday we would be wondering if we were in Europe or in the US.

Oil was also bubbling up again, rallying to a new high on rumor Israel made another dry run of an Iran attack (it was later denied) and the Nigerian ceasefire was set to expire with no end to hostilities and you know militants: they tend to act like militants. Oil shot up to 145.08 on the close, up $3.43/gallon on the session. Oil fell to the near trendline to start the week and then exploded higher with a vengeance. No breakdown there. A weak dollar (now takes 1.5931 dollars to buy a euro) and surging gold (966.80, +24.80) show the problems our weak dollar policy engenders. More on this later when I discuss the most recent evidence of our importation of inflation.

The news cast a palpable gloom over the stock market. Talking to trading desks and the few floor traders left there was a definite 'throw the hands up' level of frustration. Each time the market was setting up to bounce, the one-two punch of new financial issues and rising oil dashes the bounce attempt. Stocks accordingly sold on the open, bounced modestly, then rolled over into lunch, setting new selloff lows on this leg as well as for the year on SP500 and DJ30. Then the President came on to assure us Bernanke and Paulson were working on the situation. Senator Dodd (senate banking chairman) also hit the airwaves assuring us that FNM and FRE had plenty of capitalization, etc.

Whether it was the 'soothing' words or just coincidence, the indices bottomed and surged. Surged. They made it back to positive after the Dow was down near 250 points. Didn't last. In the last hour the market slipped to negative again as many used the bounce to do the old 'get me the hell out ahead of the weekend' move. We picked up some positions on this action given that some strong stocks shrugged off all of this up and down and emerged from the rubble.

Bonds shine a ray of light through the gloom.

It was not a total recovery from the selling what with the last hour slump back to negative, but it was not nearly as bad as the early gloom suggested. Moreover, bond yields stopped their dive; I expected to see the 2 year yield down to 2.30% or less pre-market, but it was up slightly (2.44% versus 2.42% on Thursday). Investors were not fleeing to the safety of treasuries despite the wailing in the stock market futures. The bond market inverted and showed the economic turmoil to come (housing collapse, financial credit issues, weak dollar, surging oil) even as Greenspan and company tried to explain it away. Turns out bonds were right. Now the curve shows the right curvature for future growth and the bond market wasn't panicking Friday morning and indeed bond yields rose through the session with the 2 year closing at 2.60%, up 18BP from the Thursday close. Bonds are suggesting that the stock market is, at least near term, overreacting a bit.

VIX wakes up.

VIX started to break free some, coming within a gnat's butt of 30 (29.44) as it cleared the 26 resistance level. VIX is starting to gin up a bit to get over 40 where it needs to get. That leaves the likelihood of a further selloff early next week that would help spike volatility higher, flush out the market a bit more, and allow a rebound. History shows that after a Friday such as this one and the one last week that the probability of a further blow down that helps set a bottom, interim or longer term, jumps. Again, the oil issue is still hanging out there, so any bounce would be more of the interim, relief type. One thing Friday did that last Friday did not: many traders lost hope of such a bounce. A watched pot won't boil and an anticipated bounce won't spring as long as the majority is looking for it. With the hands thrown up in anger, despair, and frustration on Friday, many gave up on a bounce over the next week. Good.

TECHNICAL. Low to lower back to positive then giving up the green. Not the best intraday action, but given the alternative that looked to be developing early in the session, the finish well off the lows, though negative, was not bad. It was no turning point, it didn't change the character of the market, but given all the gloom there was no implosion. A bit of backbone at the same support levels that held all week.

INTERNALS: Breadth was weak on NYSE (-2:1), flat on NASDAQ. By the close the number of stocks lower had improved considerably. Volume was up on both exchanges, showing there was some strength in buying that drove stocks back up off their new lows for the year (at least on SP500 and DJ30). Price/volume action has improved over the week, so the market has that going for it. Decent though again, not determinative in itself. A very interesting development was the 791 new low count on NYSE. That is extreme, and while it is not a bell signaling a market turn, these kind of extreme numbers should be noted and logged as they accumulate and tell you to be on the lookout for good patterns developing even in the rubble of a selloff.

CHARTS: DJ30 and SP500 plowed to new lows for the year, but they were alone in the adventure as NASDAQ held the higher of its two 2008 lows as did SP600. In the afternoon rebound SP500 even managed to come back within its prior range though it did close at a new 2008 low. In short, while the indices dumped lower early, they rebounded and did not markedly change their overall standing heading into next week. That means NASDAQ, SP500, and SP600 are all still in their lateral range of the past week and a day, and that leaves them in position to make a long overdue relief bounce though it might take another sharp downside session

LEADERSHIP: There was no real change in leadership either, and while that was a positive for those stocks in the health sectors and the smattering elsewhere in tech, light industrial, and software, for a market that is thin on leadership that was not necessarily good news. Energy was perky, however, especially coal, natural gas as anticipated. In a market bounce they are ready to fill in some of the background and lend support. What the market needs is for new and even some old leadership areas to form up some bases out of the rubble of the selloff. That is ultimately the signal that the market is ready to move higher, i.e. good stocks nearing breakout points of good bases after the sentiment and technical indicators hit extreme levels. The thin leadership ranks right now tell the seasoned market trader and investor that even a near term bounce off of some extreme sentiment indications is likely not THE ultimate bottom in the bear market.

THE ECONOMY

All signs pointing toward recession and 1970's-like policy mistakes.

The trade balance figures for May (nothing like timely numbers) show a narrowing trade gap (-$59.8B actual versus -62.2B expected and -60.5B in April), something everyone was harping about for the past 6 years and indeed even longer (20 years as far as I can recall). Everyone said if we did not get the trade balance down we would lose our influx of foreign capital, default, endure locusts, sterility, etc. Basically the argument is we were threatening our standard of living, our economic strength, because we carried a trade deficit.

There has been no decline in the amount of money moving into US treasuries. When the going gets tough, money from around the world shows up at our shores, begging for the safety of US treasuries. So what if the Chinese economy is still growing at a 7+% clip? If there is trouble in the world economies, the mantra is 'go west young currency.' The monthly influx of foreign money shows this is still the case, trade deficit or not.

But lo, now the trade gap is shrinking as the dollar buys less and less, and our prosperity declines due to a weak economy (and a weak dollar). Yes, history shows the very opposite of the argument of those squeamish about trade gaps. When we are prosperous we buy a lot of goods, foreign and domestic. We tend to have a stronger currency when we are prosperous unless it is undermined by foolish policy (a.k.a. Bush I and Bush II policy), and thus we run a deficit because our prosperity and strong dollar allows us to buy more than we sell.

When we turn to recession we buy less because consumption is naturally curtailed through job loss and income decline and because the dollar typically weakens (makes sense: weaker economy means a weaker currency) and thus our dollars buy even less foreign goods. Thus the buying declines, the dollar weakens and buying declines further, but then US goods become more of a value to foreign buyers, we export more and the trade gap narrows. Bad times, narrower gap. It narrows until we return to prosperity and start buying more foreign goods with a strengthening jobs environment and strengthening currency. Gap expands as our prosperity and dollar strength grows.

Now that the trade gap worriers are getting what they want, we can ask, is this really what the rest of us want? It seems intuitive that you want balance. We hear we need balance in our work and play, in what we eat, etc. We are taught that is good. Maybe that works for diet, but would we like it if our economy was 'balanced' with Europe's where 2% growth is considered blockbuster? We averaged 4+% in our good years of recovery; averaged that. Don't we want to have a stronger economy than other nations so we can have a better standard of living, a strong currency, world leading healthcare, technology, diet, etc.? That comes from imbalance. Trade gaps don't matter as long as you have them for the right reasons, i.e. because you have strength. Our history shows we should not fear trade gaps but want them as long as we are promoting and rewarding enterprise, entrepreneurship, and ingenuity. Right now we are heading the other direction, and that is more evidence that we are heading toward something economically worse than we have had thus far.

Importing more inflation as a result of bad decisions.

We have touched on this before, the administration's fixation on a weak dollar in order to rescue manufacturing. We still have the greatest manufacturing sector on earth, it just isn't as great as it was given the decline in demand for heavy machinery here in the US compared to other places on earth. A lot of what we used to make is manufactured elsewhere because of labor costs, proximity to raw materials, etc. It is a natural migration but through misunderstanding economics, both Bush I and Bush II have made the same mistake of pursuing a weak 'strong dollar' policy. No matter that history shows no country has ever, ever devalued its currency and achieved economic prosperity. Indeed, as we are proving in the present day version of a history of failed attempts throughout history, devaluing your currency undermines your economic prosperity by cheapening the hard work of your citizens and importing inflation.

Once more Friday we see the result of the pursuit a weak dollar. Import prices rose 0.9% month over month topping the 0.7% in May that was revised up from 0.5%. Year over year import prices rose a whopping 20.5%! 20.5% inflation in goods bought overseas. Yes energy makes up a big portion of that, but one of the reasons oil is sitting at $145/bbl is not speculation or world demand, but a dollar that has almost cut its value versus a euro in half (Friday it took 1.5931 dollars to buy a euro; it used to take 80 cents to buy a euro). Now who is in favor of a weak dollar?

Strip out energy and the year over year grow was 6.6%. You may breath a sigh of relief that it is not 20%, but 6.6% inflation is killer. Yet even with this, Paulson is still lobbying China to float the yuan more versus the dollar. With its strong economy the yuan would jump higher if not tied to our greenback. Paulson wants a stronger yuan to shrink our trade gap with China. As discussed above, however, do we want that? China makes a lot of cheap goods that we don't make here. Do we want to pay more for these? Maybe, maybe not.

This would not be a problem, however, if we were not pushing the dollar lower and lower. Promote our dollar and let China float its currency; we both win. We slow the transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars to OPEC nations who would love to hurt us. This is not a policy, it is criminal to allow this to happen. Our leaders, both republican and democrat, have for decades ignored the problem with no energy plan and no foresight as to growth in the rest of the world.

Not hearing any solutions on the campaign trail.

The democratic nominee to be says he was not part of that dilatory view toward these issues and thus vote for him as new blood, the element of change. His plan to stop the wealth transfer, however, doesn't even address the serious issues involved. He wants more rebates to pay for gas, i.e. another wealth transfer that fails to solve the underlying problem. Nothing in his energy plan delivers more or cheaper energy. It is applying a band aid to the issue, and once the money is gone nothing has changed. The republican candidate can only offer drilling as an option. That is part of the solution, but there must be resolve to promote R&D to get us off burning oil products to power our vehicle fleet. There is no short term solution to actually producing more energy, but concrete plans to allow more drilling in areas that hold the most potential reserves, aggressively incenting R&D in alternative energy and transportation areas would immediately impact the futures market for energy.

We who trade in the financial markets all understand that markets control prices and perceptions about the future control markets. If the US allows expedited permitting in key areas KNOWN to hold large reserves such as that desolate wasteland called ANWR where no one visits and the predominant wildlife are mosquitoes and biting flies the size of red wasps, the futures market would start factoring that in. Why are we protecting ANWR versus trading it out for some place here in the 48 states, Hawaii, or even another spot in Alaska where there is great beauty, concentrations of wildlife, and other desirable characteristics such as the ability of US citizens to actually see, visit, and marvel at its beauty? Seems to be more than an equitable trade.

What about the 62M acres of federal land currently leased for drilling that we hear about now every day? If it held the potential to produce oil and gas in quantities that would be marketable, it would be drilled tomorrow. The problem is (and I was in the industry for 10 years), as with most things in the world, most of the resources sought are concentrated in just a few areas. The open oceans are basically empty of fish; most fish are concentrated in areas such as the Grand Banks where the conditions are just right. Gold that is commercial is concentrated so removal is easier and thus less costly. There are tons of gold in the ground that will remain in the ground because it is too thinly dispersed to be commercially mined, particularly with the environmental concerns associated with the mining.

Moreover, listening to the rhetoric concerning drilling in ANWR, one would presume that if the 62M acres were developed, a massive outcry would erupt from these same people desiring to prevent ANWR drilling. The science showing where oil and gas deposits are located is now very precise. The 62M acres hold some oil and gas, but they are not concentrated in quantities that make it commercially viable for large companies to develop. Small companies can do it as their overhead is lower, but it will take thousands and thousands of wells to drill each of these smaller deposits. Those will require thousands of miles of roads and pipelines to spider together the small recovery potential and get it to market. Talk about destructive resource acquisition. On the other hand, the large deposits in ANWR and elsewhere would take few well sites given current technology and thus less infrastructure to produce and get hundreds if not thousands of times more product to market. We win by getting a lot of production at a cheaper per barrel price, and with the amounts we are talking about, the futures market will indeed be favorably impacted. It is a myth that producing this oil, indeed commencing efforts to produce this oil, won't impact the futures market near term. If we are serious about doing it and expedite the process, we will feel the impact much sooner than the 7 to 10 years bandied about on the television.

Drilling is not the only answer. As noted, we need to incent the pursuit of other forms of energy, primarily getting our vehicle fleet off fossil fuels. That is the only way we will solve our addiction to foreign oil and stop the wealth transfer. Right now we are providing no incentive to do this. Indeed, we are providing no incentive for ANY solution to our energy and wealth/standard of living transfer. Incenting alternatives to fossil fuel engines along with increasing current supply of traditional fuels should be our top priorities as it gives us a one-two punch approach to reining in runaway energy costs . . . even with our policy of cheapening our labor and hard work through devaluing our currency.

I got a bit off the path there of inflation importation, but it is all bundled together given that oil is valued in dollars and the policies we are pursuing exacerbate the natural price rises thanks to demand. We have to think big picture and act accordingly. We can get off fossil fuel engines in the time some say it would take to get offshore or ANWR production to market. That does not mean we should not drill more: drilling will lower product price and give us more currency to deal with solving the ultimate problem, i.e. getting off fossil fuels and stopping the transfer of our standard of living overseas.

THE MARKET

MARKET SENTIMENT

VIX: 27.49; +1.9. Finally getting off the dime and moving higher. When it goes, it goes fast, so a selloff in stocks early in the week (Monday) that historically follows a weak ending to a negative week would spike it quickly toward that level.
VXN: 31.67; +1.22
VXO: 29.96; +2.76

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.15; +0.09. Eleven in a row over 1.0 on the close. Plenty of worry about more downside exhibited in the options market to help firm up a bounce.

Bulls versus Bears:

For the second time this year bears are crossing above bulls, doing so basically where they did in March on their way to much more extreme readings just about the time the market made the March low and started the last rally. Positive for the market and if SP500 is going to hold the long term trendline is the place to do it.

This is a reading of the number of bullish investment advisors versus bearish advisors. The reason you look at this is that it gives you an idea of how bullish investors are. If they are too bullish then everyone is in the market and it is heading for a top: if everyone wants to be in the market then all the money is in and there is no more new cash to drive it higher. On the other side of the spectrum if there are a lot of bears then there is a lot of cash on the sideline, and as the market rallies it drags that cash in as the bears give in. That cash provides the market the fuel to move higher. If bears are low it is the same as a lot of bulls: everyone is in and the market doesn't have the cash to drive it higher.

Bulls: 27.4%. Plunging from 31.9% and blowing past the 30.9% low hit in March and well below the 35% level considered bullish for stocks (gets so low there is plenty of money lying around to fund a rally if things turn). Steep drop from a rebound high at close to 50% on the run through May. In March the indicator did its job with the dive below 35% and the crossover with the bears. Now it is going above and beyond. Bulls and bears have crossed over again, doing so even before the prior lows are hit. The bulls and bears were eye to eye in mid-February and have crossed. A move into the lower 40's is a decline of significance. A move to 35% is a bullish indicator. This is smashing that. For reference it bottomed in the summer 2006, the last major round of selling ahead of this 2007 top, near 36%, and 35% is considered bullish.

Bears: 47.3%. Up sharply from 44.7% and 39.3% the week before. Well above the bullish level and the highest since 1995. Again, that is one of the best indications that sentiment is getting extreme on the negative side. It is again past 35%, the level that historically indicates too much pessimism. As with the bulls the jump in bears did its job after hitting 44.7% in the third week of March that was up from an already freakishly strong 43.3% the week before. Up sharply from a low of 19.6% on the last rally. Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). This is a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

NASDAQ

Stats: -18.77 points (-0.83%) to close at 2239.08
Volume: 2.392B (+3.49%). Volume was up as NASDAQ reached lower and rebounded off the January low. Finished down but shows buying, whether short covering or long buying, off of that level once more.

Up Volume: 700.999M (-860.35M)
Down Volume: 1.63B (+911.233M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.08 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.24 to 1

New Highs: 37 (+8)
New Lows: 419 (+90)

NASDAQ CHART: Click to view the chart

A new low on this leg of selling, but NASDAQ did not come close to breaking new ground for 2008, tapping right at the January intraday low and rebounding. It missed out closing positive, but the rebound once more at this support and on rising trade shows there is indeed some solid support that is trying to bounce it higher. Got no held from the large caps on Friday and that was its Achilles heel but it did not sink it. NASDAQ is due a bounce to rally up near 2375 or so and form the right shoulder to a head and shoulders trying to form since March. If the market is ultimately going lower from here it will form that pattern over the next four or five weeks.

NASDAQ 100 (-1.58%) was the loss leader on the session, but it too recovered after undercutting some support at 1800 and holding above that on the close. Trying to hold the line and put in a bounce but with AAPL, RIMM, GOOG trading lower, it was not going to bounce on Friday.

SOX (-1.00%) is trying to hold 340ish, the lows from January through March, and Thursday and Friday it did manage to bounce off of that level. It is more of a follower to the upside here as it is suffering from a sharp downside bias.

NASDAQ 100 CHART: Click to view the chart

SOX CHART: Click to view the chart

SP500/NYSE

Stats: -13.9 points (-1.11%) to close at 1239.49
NYSE Volume: 1.734B (+13.05%). Strongest volume of the week as the NYSE indices sold off but then recovered. Similar to NASDAQ, that is not necessarily a bad thing despite the downside finish on the session.

Up Volume: 496.709M (-266.838M)
Down Volume: 1.23B (+488.496M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 2.03 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.12 to 1

New Highs: 40 (+14)
New Lows: 791 (+318). Some seriously negative indications from the new lows, definitely getting extreme though as noted above, not necessarily a timing indicator.

SP500 CHART: Click to view the chart

Reached to a new 2008 low, reaching down to the June 2006 low, then rebounding to hold its recent range where it has tried to find some footing for a bounce similar to the other indices. Still in a downtrend and quite an ugly one, but at some point it is going to make a bounce to do a bit more than test the 10 or 18 day EMA. With this downside bias the going is tough, but it is showing tenacity at this 2005/2006 range of support.

SP600 (+0.31%) was the lone wolf to the upside on the session, managing to hang onto the gains in the last hour but just by a couple of whiskers. Once more it held above the January and March 2008 lows and bounced positive. No trend reversal, no big change, just working on trying to put in a floor here for a bounce.

SP600 Chart: Click to view the chart

SP400 CHART: Click to view the chart

DJ30

The Dow recovered off its lows as well, but it plowed more new low ground and lagged on its recovery. Its lateral move around 11,250 has sagged through the bottom as the Dow touched down below 11K for the first time since mid-2006. It is oversold having faded roughly the same amount as the initial selloff from October through March (2000 points), and there is support in the 11K range. It will bounce along with the rest of the market at some point in the near future given its losses to this point, but there is likely more downside to come, the first being at 10,700ish but then on down closer to 10,000 and that is time to break out those old Dow 10,000 caps.

Stats: -128.48 points (-1.14%) to close at 11100.54
VOLUME: 275M shares Friday versus 248M shares Thursday. Strongest volume of the week, but not as positive as the other indices (and they were not resounding upside wins) given the lack of serious recovery off its session lows.

DJ30 CHART: Click to view the chart

THE WEEK AHEAD

The market is still in position to rebound as NASDAQ, SP500 and SP600 all held their lateral moves and the same support, but the market finds it nearly impossible to shake off the daily financial story or the steady climb in oil prices. At some point the market simply becomes so oversold it rebounds regardless of the news. That is what we see still developing, it is just to this point the market hasn't been able to spring the upside. Again at some point it makes the snap back even if it is just a bounce in a bear market, and we are definitely in the latter; have been for quite some time.

At this point you start looking at bigger patterns to see just how far down the market has to go. A major selloff often has three major legs lower. As noted in the Dow discussion, it looks as if the Dow is at the last stage of a second leg lower in the selling. NASDAQ, however, looks as if it has only completed one full downside leg and is only half way down its second leg if you measure it by the first 600 point decline. Similar on the SP500 though you can debate the initial 150 points from October through November as the first leg or not. What this shows is that at this juncture is that the market is currently oversold but it is not near the bottom of the bear.

Doesn't mean you cannot make some serious scratch on the screaming upside recoveries, one of which is not too far off, and some more serious scratch on the selloffs after the runs higher. As you know, we are playing the current leaders in anticipation of that upside recovery ahead of playing a lot more downside after the rally runs its course. Of course we have some downside positions now as well; started taking a few as the lateral consolidation is eroding a bit. We are still anticipating a big blow down before the bounce, and we will use that to lock in that downside gain and then catch the wave back up, ride it until it starts to roll over, then have a clear shot at the downside if the technical indications to the upside are as weak as we anticipate.

Support and Resistance

NASDAQ: Closed at 2239.08
Resistance:
2261 is a March 2008 interim low
The 10 day EMA is 2277
2286 is the first April 2008 gap up point.
2335 is the trendline from the summer 2004/July 2006 lows, Q4 2005 consolidation
2340 from the March 2007 low
2370 from the April 2006 peak
2377 is a 50% retracement of the June to July selloff.
2378 is the mid-February peak; 2379 from the October 2006 peak
The 90 day SMA at 2376
The 50 day EMA at 2376
2386 is the August 2007 intraday low
2388 is the June 2008 low
2392 is the April 2008 peak
2419 is the January 2008 peak and the early February peak
2451 is the August closing low
The 200 day SMA at 2484
2500 from interim August lows.

Support:
2202 is the January 2008 low
2155 is the March 2008 low

S&P 500: Closed at 1239.49
Resistance:
1244 is an August 2005 peak
1257 is the March low
1270 is the January low
The 10 day EMA at 1266
The 18 day EMA at 1286
1317 from the February low
1324 is the April low
1325 is a 50% retracement of the May to July selloff
The 50 day EMA at 1329
1331 is the June low
1342 is an ancient trendline
1370 is the August 2007 intraday low
1374 is the March 2007 closing low
1387 is the April 2008 intraday high
1396 is the February 2008 peak
The 200 day SMA at 1403
1406 is the August and November 2007 closing low

Support:
1240 to 1221 are September 2005 peaks1234 is the July 2006 low
1224 is the June 2006 low

Dow: Closed at 11,100.54
Resistance:
11,061 from February 2006
11,317 from March 2006
The 10 day EMA at 11,319
The 18 day EMA at 11,517
11,634 is the January intraday low
11,670 is the May 2006 intraday high; 11,642 closing
11,731 is the March 2008 low
12,000 is a 50% retracement of the May to July selloff
The 50 day EMA at 11,999
12,050 from the March 2007
12,070 from the early February 2008 lows
12,250 from late March 2007 lows
The 90 day SMA at 12,334
12,518 is the August intraday low
12,573 is the mid-February high
12,743 is the November low
12,750 to 12,768 is the February 2008 peak and a series of lows and highs from August 2007
The 200 day SMA at 12,765
12,786 is the February 2007 peak
12,845 is the August closing low
13,092 is the December 2007 intraday low
13,133 is the May 2008 high

Support:
10,912 peak from March 2005
10,854 from December 2004
10,701-10,705 from July 2006, July 2005

Economic Calendar

These are consensus expectations. Our expectations will vary and are discussed in the 'Economy' section.

July 15 - Tuesday
- PPI, June (8:30): 1.3% expected, 1.4% prior
- Core PPI (8:30): 0.3% expected, 0.2% prior
- NY Empire Sate PMI, July (8:30): -4.0 expected, -8.7 prior
- Retail sales, June (8:30): 0.3% expected, 1.0% prior
- Retail ex-auto (8:30): 0.8% expected, 1.2% prior
- Business inventories, May (10:00): 0.5% expected, 0.5% prior

July 16 - Wednesday
- CPI, June (8:30): 0.7% expected, 0.6% prior
- Core CPI (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
- Net foreign purchases, May (9:00): $115.1B prior
- Capacity Utilization, June (9:15): 79.4% expected, 79.4% prior
- Industrial Production, June (9:15): 0.2% expected, -0.2% prior
- Crude oil inventories (10:30): -5.8M prior
- FOMC minutes, June 25 meeting (2:00)

July 17 - Thursday
- Building permits, June (8:30): 970K expected, 969K prior
- Housing starts, June (8:30): 968K expected, 975K prior
- Initial jobless claims (8:30): 346K prior
- Philly Fed, July (10:00): -15.2 expected, -17.1 prior