STOCK MARKET WATCH, MONDAY AUGUST 4.....(#1)

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - U.S. stocks geared up for a higher open Monday, with investors willing to get back in after the Dow closed out Friday with its first losing week in five.

However, any gains could be anemic, analysts said, due to the light smattering of economic and earnings news and even lighter volume, for which August trade is known.

At 7:15 a.m. ET, futures pointed to a higher open for the major indexes.

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EDIT: I think this is a load of crap.

Intermarket Relationships to Declining Bonds

The financial markets were all over the board this week. U.S. Treasury instruments continued their brutal sell-off, but this week has been different because stocks are now going down right along with U.S. Treasury Bonds. Right when you think that interest rates should stabilize, they keep heading higher as investors continue dumping bonds. This could continue, as the Treasury is going to borrow more money next week than it ever has for a quarterly refunding. It’s beginning to look like the Feds needed interest rates to go higher just so they would have enough buyers next week to sell $60 billion in new Treasury debt.

Bad Spin on the Economy

The absolute worst spin that Wall Street continues to spew forth is the notion that interest rates are going up because of improving economic conditions. They have to spin it that way, otherwise how can higher rates be justified. The fact of the matter is that the Fed blew a bunch of smoke while they were screaming worries of deflation. The smokescreen of deflation gave the Feds the green light to inflate, inflate, and inflate some more. The bond market took the head fake initially from the Fed back in May and early June, and bought Treasuries only to get the big let down when Alan Greenspan addressed Congress to say that they probably wouldn’t need to support the bond market. The selling hasn’t stopped since then. Bonds are selling-off due to inflation fears, not because of an improving economy. Would someone please tell me what is better about the economy?

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Like I said earlier, 1.7% of the 2.4% increase in GDP came from government borrowing and spending on war items. This is the largest increase in military spending since the fall of 1951 during the Korean War. Now-a-days, when we look for similar economic and financial conditions we have to go to the history books. Just remember that back in 1951 we were the biggest creditor nation on earth, while today we are the greatest debtor nation in all of world history, and piling it on at the fastest rate ever!

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Great Wrap-up as usual. Loved this: The absolute worst spin that Wall Street continues to spew forth is the notion that interest rates are going up because of improving economic conditions.

Damn straight this is a load of bull. Glad to see someone call it what it is. Makes me wonder about what lies they will build the hype on this week which is anticapated to be a no-news, no-action sort of week on the Street......

Also loved this: Just remember that back in 1951 we were the biggest creditor nation on earth, while today we are the greatest debtor nation in all of world history, and piling it on at the fastest rate ever!

So true. We need to show the freepers & Co. how much of their hard-earned tax dollars will be used to pay the interest on that debt.

Red Ink Republicans. Cheap Labor Republicans. However you want to say it, there it is, your answer as to why the economy is sinking.

Hope you had a good weekend. Love the toon BTW.

Julie

:donut: :donut: :donut:

I just posted a message, sort of an urgent appeal, for folks to help out while we regulars are away having fun and making money.

Speaking of money - I wonder how much of the manufacturing info will include munitions orders. Since the government's deficit spending on military adventurism is accountable for the major load of GDP figures, by all fairness this should be included. This is alternately troubling and disgusting. Like Hitler's Germany, our government is heavily invested in industries that make items for which there is no market (outside of military application).

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks are set for a slightly higher start on Monday as lower prices tempt investors following a decline in the market last week, but data on factory orders shortly after the open may color Wall Street sentiment.

Stocks slumped on Friday after reports showed U.S. companies were still cutting jobs and the manufacturing sector had not picked up as much as investors had hoped. All three indexes dropped for the week, with the Dow Jones industrial average snapping a four-week string of gains.

June factory orders will offer investors more clues on the state of the U.S. economy at 10 a.m. Factory orders are forecast to rise 1.5 percent, compared with May's 0.4 percent gain, according to economists polled by Reuters.

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The faithful few who maintain this thread are looking for more contributors to "kick" to its health during market hours.

I am starting a new project (one can call it a job) and will not be around during the day as much anymore. The thread will get started but I cannot update past the market open due to my new work schedule.

So if you have been lurking, perhaps popping in from time-to-time to get the numbers, we fans of this thread encourage you to post to the thread's health. It has been recently discovered that this thread receives between around 600 visits per day. Regulars like Maeve, Julie, Coventina, Cap'n Sunshine and others (I'm sorry if my frail memory omitted you) have contributed mightily to the substantive and timely updates that many have come to expect as a viable news source.

So the intermittent absence of Maeve, Julie and me during this vacation and working season presents the irregular poster with a prime opportunity to throw in your two cents worth of information and market updates.

Thank you very much.

Homeowners in the US lose money when they opt to lock into fixed-rate mortgages instead of adjustable-rate mortgages because they tend to move home sooner than they expect, a new survey commissioned by ING Direct indicates.

On average, people polled in the study, which questioned about 1,000 homeowners, thought they would live in their homes for about 16 years but they moved after eight to nine years.

These days, most Americans' favourite mortgage is still the 30-year fixed-rate, which guarantees a stable interest rate for that period. But ARMs, which offer lower rates for a short time, are gaining appeal because they are cheaper.

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rate talk, let's talk debt.

How many lemmings are wallowing in house debt?? How many have bitten the shiney apple of borrowing 125% of their home's worth? Too many. Just keep refinancing to pay those bills and buy new junk you don't need. It's OK. Plenty more where that came from....*wink* (as the well runs dry)

What a ship of fools.

Julie

Cap'n, may we have your take on this?

Chaos in the bond market, triggered by a steep rise in government bond yields, has worsened troubles at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the US mortgage financiers.

Their funding costs have increased sharply in the past week as the value of their debt deteriorated due to an extraordinary rout in the mortgage securities markets.

Investors in mortgage securities had their worst month since March 1994 in July, with losses of 2.6 per cent, Lehman Brothers said, as a surge in government bond yields and mortgage rates sparked heavy selling.
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When mortgage rates rise, fewer homeowners refinance their mortgages, lengthening the period over which investors can expect to receive income. <..cut..>

story

Investor borrowing to finance stock purchases has surged in recent months at US online brokerages, in a sign that speculative trading among small investors may be on the rise, especially in technology stocks.

The size of "on-margin" balances reported by the four largest US online brokers - Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, E*Trade and TD Waterhouse - rose by double-digit percentages in the second quarter. The trend coincides with sharp rises in some of the most speculative stock sectors on the Nasdaq exchange, which tend to be favoured by online investors.

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The willingness of investors to take on more risk is a healthy sign for stock markets, at least in the short term. But it can leave investors exposed to price swings. No one sees the increase in stock speculation as approaching the fever of the late 1990s but analysts have begun to question the valuations of some technology, media and telecoms stocks.

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But it can leave investors exposed to price swings.
According to one analyst on PRI's Marketplace - this situation precipitated the Dow's dramatic fall when the dot-com bubble burst. People lost so much money on dot-com speculation that they had to sell blue chips to cover losses.

looks like we are making the same mistakes--too much margin buying being one of them.

Julie

and it hurts already just 10 minutes in:


Dow 9,126.59 -27.38 (-0.30%)
Nasdaq 1,712.99 -2.63 (-0.15%)
S&P 500 977.73 -2.42 (-0.25%)
10-Yr Bond 4.404% -0.011


Let's justhope this "rally" holds. ;-)

Julie

Bye folks. See you tomorrow morning.

DJIA 9,112.02 -41.95 (-0.46%)
NASDAQ 1,710.40 -5.22 (-0.30%)
S&P 500 975.63 -4.52 (-0.46%)

and thanks for starting things every morning Ozy. Has Maeve left for her trip do you know?

Have a good day! :hi:

Julie

Dow 9,082.12 -71.85 (-0.78%)
Nasdaq 1,703.01 -12.61 (-0.74%)
S&P 500 971.58 -8.57 (-0.87%)


Just recovering from the festival (wonderful, wonderful weekend!)--we don't leave until next week, so I'll be around a fair amount until then.
Another uncheerful start to the week....:hangover:

:hi:

I'm glad to hear the weekend went so well. One of these times I'll have to come down for that festival, sounds fun!

You are so right, this week is starting off on a sour note alright! Ouch! I watched CNBC while the manufacturing numbers came out. They were a tiny bit higher than expected but I am sure traders are aware of what was behind better than expected GDP #s so they aren't seeing this as the reason for happy-dancing onemight expect. Still, I watched and it looked like someone tried like hell to blow on the embers and get a flame goin'. The DOW crept up a bit very briefly, only down in the 50's!! Unfortunately, not only did the embers not start flaming, it started to rain. At 10:25 it looks as though it could become a tropical storm before the day is out, hurricane conditions unlikely IMO:


Dow 9,075.19 -78.78 (-0.86%)
Nasdaq 1,695.14 -20.48 (-1.19%)
S&P 500 969.84 -10.31 (-1.05%)

10-Yr Bond 4.371% -0.044

Glad you're here this week Maeve.

Julie

U.S. factory orders rose 1.7% in June, more than expected. Details coming. (1.3-1.5% was expected)

edit: details

Factory Orders
Factory orders rose 1.7 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted $326.0 billion after an increase of just 0.3 percent a month earlier, the Commerce Department said. The gain was slightly above the 1.5 percent increase Wall Street economists had expected.

Orders for non-durable goods -- items expected to last less than three years -- gained 0.7 percent, while orders for expensive durable items like cars and refrigerators rose 2.6 percent, their biggest gain since July of last year.

The department originally had said durable goods orders rose 2.1 percent in June, boosted in part by big gains in demand for cars and aircraft


Hmmmm...war lifting the numbers again? :shrug:

Market Overview
Mon 10:08am ET
After a choppy open, the major indices pick up where they left off last session and trend sharply lower... Despite a batch of mostly stronger than expected economic data, the stock market finished slightly lower last week, pressured by the substantial rise in treasury yields and the underlying...more

http://finance.yahoo.com

(10:32)
Dow 9,050.61 -103.36 (-1.13%)
Nasdaq 1,689.25 -26.37 (-1.54%)
S&P 500 967.36 -12.79 (-1.30%)
10-Yr Bond 4.375% -0.040

Good to see a little money flowing back into the bond market at least.

Julie

Sort of crawling sideways and slightly up from thw worst of it.

Dow 9,079.11 -74.86 (-0.82%)
Nasdaq 1,692.69 -22.93 (-1.34%)
S&P 500 969.63 -10.52 (-1.07%)

Wow! Did I ever have problems posting this! Kept getting "Couldn't connect to database" errors.
Anyway, have to hurry. Late for work....

Today's reading is DEVELOPING changing to TEMPTATION.
Here's a few snippets, "You are in a secure position. The most important thing is to maintain your safety now so that you can develop the conditions for later success." That's from the DEVELOPING side. TEMPTATION warns, "What you propose to do or what has been proposed to you is counterproductive."

I'm having my biopsy done tomorrow, so I won't be able to do a reading tomorrow. Assuming all goes well I should be back on Wed. I'll try to help more also with updates throughout the day.

Gotta run for now! :hi:

or good karma or whathaveyou......please keep us posted--I'll be sending good vibes your way.

I think the temptation comes in while the market's looking so sickly. Lots of traders will be tempted to dump and run for the hills (of gold maybe?).

I'll be watching for a health update from you! :hi:

Julie

As for the I Ching today...I wonder if it is warning against dumping, or against buying on the dip :shrug: Either could be tempting today.

:-)

I'll try to post something as soon as I get home tomorrow, but that won't be until after the markets close I think. It's going to be a long day tomorrow.
:-(

11:39 and everything's looking brighter, in an artificial sort of way.....


Dow 9,101.09 -52.88 (-0.58%)
Nasdaq 1,696.64 -18.98 (-1.11%)
S&P 500 971.50 -8.65 (-0.88%)
10-Yr Bond 4.369% -0.046


Julie

11:30AM: Stock market lifts off its worst levels in the indices' first rebound effort of the morning... The Nasdaq has stabilized around the top of its June trading range, while the S&P 500 has found support above its August 2002 high... Still, there is not much in the way of industry leadership as the recovery attempt is more a function of most stocks working their way back from larger losses... Accordingly, the sustainability of the rally remains in question at this juncture...
http://finance.yahoo.com/mo

Dow 9,097.04 -56.93 (-0.62%)
Nasdaq 1,695.94 -19.68 (-1.15%)
S&P 500 971.37 -8.78 (-0.90%)

Hard climbing day!
Dow 9,163.71 +9.74 (+0.11%)
Nasdaq 1,706.09 -9.53 (-0.56%)
S&P 500 979.00 -1.15 (-0.12%)

Markets=Lunacy today.

The blather is not helping. Things are horrible. Things are fabulous.

:shrug:

Julie

Summertime, and the markets are crazy....volume's low, and volatility high. (just a little something for all our Gershwin fans!)

Rumors of Saddam's death may have fueled some of the buying (how Republican!), but it is what it is...

Dow 9,186.04 +32.07 (+0.35%)
Nasdaq 1,714.06 -1.56 (-0.09%)
S&P 500 982.82 +2.67 (+0.27%)