Stocks Roar, Fed Confident, Home Prices Plummet

  • August 12, 2009
  • David Goodboy

Stocks roared higher today on anticipation of good news from the FOMC statement. The Fed stated it was confident that economic activity is leveling out and it will wind down its bond purchase program designed to support the economy. Despite this optimistic news, home prices continue their decline plummeting by a record 15.6% in the second quarter. The DJIA roared higher by +120.16 to 9361.61, the Nasdaq gained +28.99 to 1998.72 and the broad based S&P 500 advanced +11.46 to 1005.81.

Allstate
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Travelers
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Sara Lee
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Toll Brothers
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Oil advanced 71cents to $70.22, gold moved higher by $4.90 to 952.50 and the fear index VIX relaxed 2.08% to 25.45.

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Market Snapshot

Dow

 +120.16 9361.61

NASDAQ

 +28.99 1998.72

S&P 500

 +11.46 1005.81

Economic
News

Productivity-Prel (Q2): Consensus: 5.4%, Prior: 1.6%

Unit Labor Costs (Q2): Consensus: -2.4%, Prior: 3.0%

Wholesale Inventories (Jun): Consensus: -0.9%, Prior: -0.8%

Trade Balance (Jun): Consensus: -$28.5B, Prior: $26.0B

Crude Inventories (08/07): Consensus: NA, Prior: +1.67M

Treasury Budget (Jul): Consensus: -$180.0B, Prior: NA

FOMC Rate Decision: Consensus: NA, Prior: 0.00%-0.25%

Export Prices ex-ag. (Jul): Consensus: NA, Prior: 0.8%

Import Prices ex-oil (Jul): Consensus: NA, Prior: 0.2%

Initial Claims (08/08): Consensus: 545K, Prior: 550K

Retain Sales (Jul): Consensus: 0.7%, Prior: 0.6%

Retail Sales ex-auto (Jul): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.3%

Business Inventories (Jun): Consensus: -0.9%, Prior: -1.0%

Core CPI (Jul): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.2%

CPI (Jul): Consensus: 0.0%, Prior: 0.7%

Capacity Utilization (Jul): Consensus: 68.4%, Prior: 68.0%

Industrial Production (Jul): Consensus: 0.4%, Prior: -0.4%

Mich Sentiment-Prel (Aug): Consensus: 69.0, Prior: 66.0

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