Sunday, April 01, 2007
Jitters Abound
Firstly, I'm still having problems on the blog...but we're getting there.
Anyway back to work. Mixed economic news brought mixed results for the major market indices Friday. The Dow added 5.60 points on the session to close at 12,354.35. The SPX fell 1.67 points to 1,420.86.
Friday’s session marked the end of the first quarter of 2007 with mixed results. The Dow lost nearly one percent during the quarter, but the SPX and Naz were able to show small gains. The economy continued to be the story this week, which led to losses for the major market indices.
Personal incomes and spending were both up 0.6 percent in February, but traders were not pleased to see the core PCE price index rise 0.3 percent. This put year on year growth in the core PCE deflator at 2.4 percent, which is 2 tenths higher than it was in January. This obviously won’t sit well with the Fed, with inflation still their major concern.
The Fed should be pleased that manufacturing activity in the Chicago region improved. The Fed would like to see moderate growth, which would bring down inflation, but keep the economy out of a recession. The Chicago PMI rose to 61.7 in March, up from 47.9 in February. The very fact this report spiked so sharply has some economists wondering if the data might be skewed in some way.
Despite worries about Iran heading into the weekend, oil prices fell 16-cents on the session to close at $65.87 a barrel. For the week, crude added six percent, tacking on four percent during the month of March.
Next week will be another busy one for economic data, including the always closely watched employment report. The week will get off to a quick start when the ISM Mfg. Index is released. At the same time, we are likely to get a number of warnings the next few weeks ahead of first quarter earnings season.
It'll be interesting. Especuially as we will be repositioning this week to recoup some losses from our first play earlier this month.
Until next time.
Anyway back to work. Mixed economic news brought mixed results for the major market indices Friday. The Dow added 5.60 points on the session to close at 12,354.35. The SPX fell 1.67 points to 1,420.86.
Friday’s session marked the end of the first quarter of 2007 with mixed results. The Dow lost nearly one percent during the quarter, but the SPX and Naz were able to show small gains. The economy continued to be the story this week, which led to losses for the major market indices.
Personal incomes and spending were both up 0.6 percent in February, but traders were not pleased to see the core PCE price index rise 0.3 percent. This put year on year growth in the core PCE deflator at 2.4 percent, which is 2 tenths higher than it was in January. This obviously won’t sit well with the Fed, with inflation still their major concern.
The Fed should be pleased that manufacturing activity in the Chicago region improved. The Fed would like to see moderate growth, which would bring down inflation, but keep the economy out of a recession. The Chicago PMI rose to 61.7 in March, up from 47.9 in February. The very fact this report spiked so sharply has some economists wondering if the data might be skewed in some way.
Despite worries about Iran heading into the weekend, oil prices fell 16-cents on the session to close at $65.87 a barrel. For the week, crude added six percent, tacking on four percent during the month of March.
Next week will be another busy one for economic data, including the always closely watched employment report. The week will get off to a quick start when the ISM Mfg. Index is released. At the same time, we are likely to get a number of warnings the next few weeks ahead of first quarter earnings season.
It'll be interesting. Especuially as we will be repositioning this week to recoup some losses from our first play earlier this month.
Until next time.
# posted by Paul @ 5:16 PM 
