Housing Surprises, Stocks Mixed, IBM Leads

• July 17, 2009
• David Goodboy

The four-day winning streak almost made 5 days in a row with the broad based S&P 500 being the only negative laggard in the major indexes.  International Business Machines IBM led the DJIA higher after lifting its full year forecast.  A surprise gain in housing starts counteracted Google’s and General Electric’s performance drain with the DJIA closing up +32.12 to 8743.94, the tech heavy Nasdaq gaining +1.58 to 1886.61 and the S&P 500 missing the positive mark by giving back just +0.36 to 940.38.

KB Home
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PowerRating): A surprise 7-month increase in the housing start figure lifted the home builder sector with shares of this firm adding 4.17% or 58 cents to $14.26.

General Electric
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PowerRating): Second quarter revenue disappointed sending shares lower by 5.89% or 74 cents to $11.67.

Mattel
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PowerRating): The toy maker smashed Q2 profit estimates by 500% sending shares higher by 7.60% or $1.23 to $17.42.

Yahoo
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PowerRating): Microsoft partnership talks combined with an Oppenheimer upgrade caused shares to rise by 4.01% or 65 cents to $16.84.

Oil gained $1.39 to $63.41, gold rose 80 cents to $936.20 and the fear index VIX fell 4.25% or 24.34.

Market Snapshot

Dow +32.12 8743.94 NASDAQ +1.58 1886.61 S&P 500 +0.36 940.38

Economic News

Treasury Budget (Jun): Consensus: -$77.5B, Prior: $33.5B Core PPI (Jun): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: -0.1% PPI (Jun): Consensus: 0.8%, Prior: 0.2% Retail Sales (Jun): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: 0.5% Retail Sales ex-auto (Jun): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: 0.5% Business Inventories (May): Consensus: -1.0%, Prior: -1.1% Core CPI (Jun): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.1% CPI (Jun): Consensus: 0.6%, Prior: 0.1% Empire Manufacturing (Jul): Consensus: -5.00, Prior: -9.41 Capacity Utilization (Jun): Consensus: 67.9%, Prior: 68.3% Industrial Production (Jun): Consensus: -0.6%, Prior: -1.1% Crude Inventories (07/10): Consensus: NA, Prior: -2.90M Minutes of FOMC Meeting (06/24): Consensus: NA, Prior: NA Initial Claims (07/11): Consensus: NA, Prior: 565K Net Long-Term TIC Flows (May): Consensus: NA, Prior: $11.2B Philadelphia Fed (Jul): Consensus: -5.0, Prior: -2.2 Building Permits (Jun): Consensus: 523K, Prior: 518K Housing Starts (Jun): Consensus: 530K, Prior: 532K