Thursday, July 19, 2007
Nearly Guaranteed It
Stocks recovered late in the day from fairly steep losses. The Dow gave up 50.33 points on the session to close at 13,918.22. The SPX lost 3.20 points to end on 1,546.17. The SPX was down as much as 15 at one point. Had it remained at this level I think we could have declared a win!!
Today is the last day of trading in the SPX with the settlement price being determined by the opening prices of each stock in the SPX on Friday morning. We are in the green and looking good.
Inflation news was mostly positive today with the consumer price index (CPI) rising 0.2 percent overall and at the core. This was in line with estimates and confirms the Fed’s view that inflation is cooling. Nonetheless, the year on year core rate remains above the Fed’s comfort level at 2.2 percent. This will keep the Fed’s focus on inflation, but the Fed isn’t expected to make any changes to interest rates for some time.
Bernanke gave his semi-annual testimony to the House Financial Services Committee this morning. His comments touched on inflation and the risk it imposes. He also stated that subprime problems could worsen before they get better. Nonetheless, Mr. Bernanke believes the economy is growing at a solid pace, although growth forecasts for 2007 and 2008 were dropped by a quarter point due to problems in the housing sector.
In other news Bear Stearns stated that there is little value left in their two struggling hedge funds. These funds were rocked by problems in the subprime sector and nearly went under. If you don't understand the subprime mess I suggest you do a bit of research on the subject. It will probably be the trigger for horrible things to come in the financial world.
Until next time.
Today is the last day of trading in the SPX with the settlement price being determined by the opening prices of each stock in the SPX on Friday morning. We are in the green and looking good.
Inflation news was mostly positive today with the consumer price index (CPI) rising 0.2 percent overall and at the core. This was in line with estimates and confirms the Fed’s view that inflation is cooling. Nonetheless, the year on year core rate remains above the Fed’s comfort level at 2.2 percent. This will keep the Fed’s focus on inflation, but the Fed isn’t expected to make any changes to interest rates for some time.
Bernanke gave his semi-annual testimony to the House Financial Services Committee this morning. His comments touched on inflation and the risk it imposes. He also stated that subprime problems could worsen before they get better. Nonetheless, Mr. Bernanke believes the economy is growing at a solid pace, although growth forecasts for 2007 and 2008 were dropped by a quarter point due to problems in the housing sector.
In other news Bear Stearns stated that there is little value left in their two struggling hedge funds. These funds were rocked by problems in the subprime sector and nearly went under. If you don't understand the subprime mess I suggest you do a bit of research on the subject. It will probably be the trigger for horrible things to come in the financial world.
Until next time.
# posted by Paul @ 6:15 AM 
