Obama Rips Hedge Funds, Spending Slumps, Stocks Mixed

• April 30, 2009
• Dave Goodboy

News of a slump in Consumer Spending was counteracted by a soaring Purchasing Managers Index leading to a confused mixed stock market. Chrysler made its bankruptcy official today prompting President Obama to provide optimistic words about the company while ripping on hedge funds and lenders who wouldn’t assist the ailing automaker. The DJIA flirted back and forth across the break even point finally settling down -17.61 to 8168.12, the Nasdaq eased ahead by +5.36 to 1717.30 and the S&P 500 slipped -0.83 to 872.81.

Sequenom
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Starbucks
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Oshkosh
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Expedia
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Oil fell 0.15 cents to $50.96, Gold dropped $90.30 to $891.20 and the VIX index added 1.16% to 36.50.

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Market Snapshot

Dow -17.61 8168.12 NASDAQ +5.36 1717.30 S&P 500 -0.83 872.81

Economic News

Consumer Confidence (Apr): Consensus: 28.8, Prior: 26.0 S&P/CaseShiller Home Price Index (Feb): Consensus: -18.8%, Prior: -18.97% GDP-Adv. (Q1): Consensus: -4.9%, Prior: -6.3% Chain Deflator-Adv. (Q1): Consensus: 1.7%, Prior: 0.5% Crude Inventories (04/24): Consensus: NA, Prior: +3857K FOMC Rate Decision: Consensus: NA, Prior: 0.00%-0.25% Initial Claims (04/25): Consensus: NA, Prior: 640K Personal Income (Mar): Consensus: -0.2%, Prior: -0.2% Personal Spending (Mar): Consensus: -0.1%, Prior: -0.2% Employment Cost Index (Q1): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: 0.5% Chicago PMI (Apr): Consensus: 34.0, Prior: 31.4 Mich Sentiment-Rev (Apr): Consensus: 61.5, Prior: 61.9 Factory Orders (Mar): Consensus: -0.7%, Prior: 1.8% ISM Index (Apr): Consensus: 38.0, Prior: 36.3 Auto Sales (Apr): Consensus: NA, Prior: 3.3M Truck Sales (Apr): Consensus: NA, Prior: 3.8M