Financial Update #4/ Week of August 10. 2009

Good Morning Everyone and Happy Thursday! Yesterday we talked about how the equity markets are exactly even for the week. We ended the day yesterday with the Dow down 2 points so far in the weeks first 3 days of trading. Today we’re all over the place in and around the flat line, but no definite move one way or the other. The good news is . . . credit markets, albeit slightly, have improved along the way. Yesterday’s Treasury auction went well, and we have one more day of auction today with $15 Billion worth of 30-year T-bills for sale. The Feds didn’t really have anything to say yesterday that jolted the markets, so we just keep improving on the credit instruments. I’d like to think we’re going to see more of the same going cautiously forward for a couple weeks.

Traders have a lot to digest this morning on a veritable buffet of economic news. Wal-mart and Kohl’s both reported better than expected earnings this morning, but they are apparently the exception. Retail sales for July were down .1%, surprising analysts who were looking for an increase of .8% -- which was the updated figure in June. Initial jobless claims for last week were about 13K more than experts were anticipating, at 558K. The previous week’s claims were 554K, so no big news there. The Continuing claims fell to 6.20 million from a revised 6.34 million last week. Europe surprised the world by announcing that the German and French economies actually expanded by .3% in the 2nd quarter of 2009. This is big news as much of the world was still recessing in Q2.

Traders can’t seem to get the equity markets to move in either direction, but credit markets are clearly better and we have made up the small losses from yesterday. Our rates are within a couple bps of yesterday morning’s rate sheet. We’ll take that. I’ll be in the office all day today, call me here or email me if I can help you. Have a terrific Thursday!