Investing.com Weekly Wrap-Up 23 August 2013
by Investing.com Staff, Investing.com
Markets Find Good News In Weak Home Sales
Stocks finished higher for a second day in a row, with the Dow Industrials Index closing above its
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15,000 mark as the markets overcame downbeat housing data to end the week with moderate gains.
U.S. markets closed as follows:
- Dow Jones Industrial up 46.62 (+0.31%) to 15,010.36
- S&P 500 up 6.51 (+0.39%) to 1,663.47
- Nasdaq up 19.08 (+0.52%) to 3,657.79
Markets Sell Off During Last Minute
Closing Market Commentary For 08-23-2013
The sideways market dance continued until 15 minutes before the close when the BTFDers jumped in with abandon shooting the volume sky-high making new highs for the day. Before I could write the BTFDers obituary, the bears that were waiting to pounce, did just that and down came the numbers .
Still, by 4 pm the averages had put their best forward closing 30% to 70% higher. It looks like there are a bunch of sheeples in the market now and some of them got fleeced this afternoon. The $VIX has dropped to 14.03, investor fears are subsiding and the bulls are planning to attack the markets on Monday.
What We Read Today 23 August 2013
Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today's list.
The top of today's reading list is a discussion of hedge fund mogul Steven Cohen's possiblly criminal enterprise ........ and the end of today's list has the latest strange twist in the saga of Edward Snowden.
Markets Remarkable Recovery On Terrible Home Sales Data
Midday Market Commentary For 08-23-2013
Very nice trading swings this morning, but unfortunately very unpredictable and smells of manipulation. Volume has remained moderate to heavy with the BTFDers jumping in at every chance, but it also appears they are getting worried too as the buying spree didn't occur well after the bottoms were formed.
By noon, volume had fallen from moderate to low with the averages starting to start the afternoon session with a familiar narrow trading zone following bad home sales reports.
16 August 2013: ECRI's WLI Growth Again Declines Marginally
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ECRI's WLI Growth Index declined, but remains positive. A positive number predicts positive growth to come within the next six months. ECRI updated their lagging index this week (see below).
Manning Trial: Behind the Scenes
The trial of Chelsea Manning, AKA Bradley Manning, has come to a close. The military judge sentenced Manning to 35 years. The court martial in Ft. Meade, MD has been criticized for its secrecy and increasingly strict security measures.
Markets Open Up, Correct To Yesterday's Close
Opening Market Commentary For 08-23-2013
Premarkets were up +0.30% from yesterday's close suggesting a gap up for the cash crowd this morning.
As expected the markets did gap up at the opening (~+0.40%) but quickly reversed itself descending and closing most gaps. Notably, the NASDAQ remained higher with a significant opening gap yet to be closed. The large cap trend by 10 am was defiantly bearish but halting at yesterday's closing. The day's session has only started and doesn't look promising for the BTFDers today. Their luck may have finally run out.
July 2013 New Home Sales Were Really Bad
Written by John Lounsbury and Steven Hansen
New home sales data for July 2013 were sickly, and were well below expectations. The data remains very noisy and needs to be averaged to make any sense of it.
Read more >>
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Growth in Spending per Beneficiary in the Fee-for-Service Portion of Medicare Has Slowed
by Michael Levine and Melinda Buntin - Congressional Budget Office
Growth in spending per beneficiary in the fee-for-service portion of Medicare has slowed substantially in recent years. The slowdown has been widespread, extending across all of the major service categories, groups of beneficiaries that receive very different amounts of medical care, and all major regions.
All Chart Gaps are Not Created Equal
Online trading Academy Article of the Week
Introducing The Novice and Pro Gaps
by Sam Seiden, Online Trading Academy
Novice gaps are the ultimate picture of novice greed in the market. Why do I make gaps such an important part of the XLT program? Simple, because gaps are the most obvious way to spot a novice market speculator, which is exactly who you want on the other side of your trade. Remember, if you can't spot the novice, consistent losing trader in a market, the novice trader is probably you. Just like the game of poker. If you sit down at the table and can't figure out quickly who will pay the table that night, it is likely you.
Summer Fun for Precious Metals Investors
Bullion Vault Article of the WeekWritten by Adrian Ash, Bullion Vault
The long term needn't look quite so far off for bullion buyers right now...
Put aside the rise in US interest rates, GDP and Fed tapering talk. Just glance at the rest of this summer's headlines, and you'd think it offered a bull market for 'hard money' gold and silver.
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Japan is doubling its monetary base inside two years, while the People's Bank of China has taken to one-day injections of almost $3 billion for the financial system, boosting shares after a scary jump in bank interest rates;- Wage talks in South Africa's gold mining industry stalled Monday, with management offering 5% where the unions want a raise of 60-100%;
- Giant banks who swerved around the financial crisis 5 years ago are now risking a crash in summer 2013. Barclays bank - "widely regarded as one of the UK's strongest" according to the BBC - is nearly Pound Sterling13bn short of capital requirements (almost $20bn). Deutsche Bank paid euro 630m ($830m) in April-to-June alone to settle lawsuits from customers' mis-sold rubbish US mortgage investments.
The Worst Jobs Report in Four Months Does One Thing
Written by Michael Lombardi, Profit Confidential
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This morning we got news that 162,000 jobs were created in July in the U.S. economy-the worst showing in the past four months. (
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 2, 2013.)
And when we look closely at the July U.S.jobs market report, it gets worse.
First off, the previous months' numbers keep getting revised downward; the number of jobs added to the U.S. economy in May was revised down from 195,000 to 176,000, and June's numbers were revised down from 195,000 to 188,000-combined, that's 26,000 jobs that never really happened.
UK Car Sales Show Signs of Recovery After Downturn
by Felix Richter, Statista.com
Amid a period of unprecedented difficulty for European economies, somewhat unsurprisingly, car sales have plummeted. The eurozone has experienced a 5.6 percent year on year decline with major French manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroen predicting further gloom.
There is a major exception to the downward trend in Europe, however; Britain. With the worst of the downturn seemingly behind it, the United Kingdom is experiencing a period of improved consumer confidence, and this has been reflected by the auto industry's success.
Investing.com: Technical Analysis 22 August 2013
Investing.com Technical Analysis (as of Thu, 22 August 2013 05:00pm EDT)
by Investing.com Staff, Investing.com
Below, technical overviews and analysis for key stock indices, commodities and
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currency pairs, based on market activity at the close of the 22 August 2013 U.S. session. This information is a comprehensive summary derived from simple and exponential moving averages along with key technical indicators shown for specific time intervals.
Melissa's Revenge: Yahoo! Traffic Topped Google in July
Econintersect: For the first time in more than two years Yahoo! has edged Google for the most unique visitors for a single month. In July 2013 Yahoo! recorded 196.6 million visitors, just ahead of 196.2 for Google. However, there are missing pieces of data which could overcome the 400,000 lead, or could increase it. Yahoo! CEO Melissa Mayer left Google more than a year ago to assume her present position.
Infographic of the Day: Most Earth-like Exoplanet Discovery Explained
Classed as a 'super-Earth,' candidate planet KOI (Kepler Object of Interest) 172.02 orbits within the habitable zone of a sun-like star. This means the planet, which has yet to be confirmed by follow-up observations, could have liquid water on its surface, thought to be essential for life.
Virtual Fallibility
Econintersect: Today the NASDAQ stock exchange shut down for more than three hours. According to Reuters, the exchange attributed the stoppage to a "data feed issue" involving failure to properly distribute stock price quotes. This was just the latest performance problem for NASDAQ. One of the more "infamous" episodes was the failure by NASDAQ to properly handle order flow during the Facebook IPO in May 2012.
San Francisco Has the Most Active Start-Up Scene
by Felix Richter, Statista.com
According to rankings released by Seedtable, the United States is the world's driving force behind start-up companies, home to the most active start-up cities. Indeed, American start-up geography is well known across the world, with Silicon Valley and Boston's Route 128 particular highlights.
In the face of the global financial crisis, the American entrepreneurial spirit has come under scrutiny, yet the country is playing host to countless new innovative companies.
Industrial Production Confirmed Economic Slowdown In July As Stocks Bubbled
by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner
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Industrial Production slowed in July, while stock prices were bubbling away. QE apparently caused a stock market bubble but it has not boosted production.
The Fed reported last week that seasonally adjustedIndustrial Production was unchanged in July after having gained 0.2% in June(press release). The consensus estimate was for an increase of 0.4%.
This is another instance where economists were overly optimistic about July data, while I had been reporting to Professional Edition subscribers that the drop in real time July withholding tax collections had warned of softness (chart updated weekly in the Treasury Update).
15,000 mark as the markets overcame downbeat housing data to end the week with moderate gains.
ECRI's WLI Growth Index declined, but remains positive. A positive number predicts positive growth to come within the next six months. ECRI updated their lagging index this week (see below).
Japan is doubling its monetary base inside two years, while the People's Bank of China has taken to one-day injections of almost $3 billion for the financial system, boosting shares after a scary jump in bank interest rates;
This morning we got news that 162,000 jobs were created in July in the U.S. economy-the worst showing in the past four months. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 2, 2013.)
Industrial Production slowed in July, while stock prices were bubbling away. QE apparently caused a stock market bubble but it has not boosted production.