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The market closed in a split fashion on this Tuesday. The Dow, battered by a 5% drop in Hewlett-Packard, posted a loss of around 0.3%. The Nasdaq, on the other hand, closed higher by 0.3% and sit at a fresh 4-month high. The news on the economic front was mixed. On one hand, import prices in April increased a higher-than-expected of 1.8% from the previous month, bringing the year-over-year import inflation to 15.4%. Even excluding fuels, the import costs still rose 6.2%, the largest increase in 20 years. On the other hand, Retail sales excluding autos rose 0.5% in April. Economists expected a rise of 0.2%. As the retail sales number was collected before the bulk of rebate checks was sent out, the outlook for Q2 consumption might even be better than economists currently expected.
Commodities especially many oil service names were among big gainers for the day as crude oil hit a new historical high. Financials, hit by an analyst cutting earnings estimates on brokerages along with fresh concerns on bond insurers’ credit rating, fared poorly throughout the session. The US dollar was strengthened against most major currencies while treasuries were sold off following the stronger-than-expected retail report. As for tomorrow, we are going to get the latest CPI report, which could be a potential market mover.
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