Thursday, December 17, 2009
No Drama Fed Day
Indexes closed mixed on Wednesday despite the fact the Fed kept a favourable stance on rates. The Dow lost 10.88 points today to close at 10,441.12. The SPX was up 1.25 points to close on 1,109.18. We are in the green and looking ok.
Wednesday was a busy session for economic news, which included the consumer price index, housing starts and the Fed statement. On Tuesday, a larger than expected rise in producer prices raised concerns about pricing pressures, but the consumer price index did not show these same gains. The CPI rose 0.4 percent, which was expected, with the core rate flat in November. Year on year, the CPI is up 1.9 percent with the core rate up 1.7 percent.
Housing starts rose 8.9 percent in November to an annualized rate of 0.574 million units. This was in line with expectations, but came after a 10.1 percent decline in starts during October. Compared with the year ago period, housing starts are down 12.4 percent, but definitely have shown improvement.
Stocks went higher in early trading as the markets waited for the Fedstatement. The Fed, as expected, left rates unchanged and continued to state that rates would stay low for an “extended period” of time. However, the committee did state it sees improvement in the jobs market, albeit at a slow pace. The committee also reminded us that it plans on ending balance sheet expansion by the end of the first quarter 2010. The dollar rose on this news, which erased most of the bulls gains found early in the session.
So far we have done quite well on this play and we will be looking to close it this week if we can get a nice price.
Until next time.
Wednesday was a busy session for economic news, which included the consumer price index, housing starts and the Fed statement. On Tuesday, a larger than expected rise in producer prices raised concerns about pricing pressures, but the consumer price index did not show these same gains. The CPI rose 0.4 percent, which was expected, with the core rate flat in November. Year on year, the CPI is up 1.9 percent with the core rate up 1.7 percent.
Housing starts rose 8.9 percent in November to an annualized rate of 0.574 million units. This was in line with expectations, but came after a 10.1 percent decline in starts during October. Compared with the year ago period, housing starts are down 12.4 percent, but definitely have shown improvement.
Stocks went higher in early trading as the markets waited for the Fedstatement. The Fed, as expected, left rates unchanged and continued to state that rates would stay low for an “extended period” of time. However, the committee did state it sees improvement in the jobs market, albeit at a slow pace. The committee also reminded us that it plans on ending balance sheet expansion by the end of the first quarter 2010. The dollar rose on this news, which erased most of the bulls gains found early in the session.
So far we have done quite well on this play and we will be looking to close it this week if we can get a nice price.
Until next time.
# posted by Paul @ 3:36 AM 
