每日市場點評 --- July 15, 2008

The market continued to trade in a volatile fashion on this Tuesday. The Dow, down as much as 223 points earlier, finished the session lower by 0.8%. The Nasdaq was the only major index that ended the day in green. The S&P 500 lost more than 1% after falling as much as 2.2% earlier. The news on the economic front was mostly on the negative side. The headline PPI increased 1.8% in June following a 1.4% jump in the previous month. Economists were looking for an increase of 1.3%. Year-over-year, PPI increased 9.2%, which was the biggest y-o-y jump in 27 years. Excluding food and energy, the so-called core PPI rose 0.2% compared to 0.3% expected. In a separate report, retail sales rose 0.1% in June while economists called for an increase of 0.4%. Excluding auto sales, retail sales increased 0.8% vs. 0.9% expected. However, most of that 0.8% should be attributed to rising gasoline sales, which increased 4.6% in June. Finally, the NY Empire State Index, a regional manufacturing index, came at -4.9, slightly better than -8.0 expected.

Energies, basic materials and financials were among the biggest losers for the session. Financials suffered one of its steepest losses yesterday and dropped a further 5% earlier today before a temporary rebound. Energies, on the other hand, were mainly victims of a sharp drop in crude price, which plunged more than $10 in early trading. The CRB commodity index ended the session lower by 2%, mainly driven by weaknesses in energies and agriculture products. The US dollar was lower against most major currencies. Earlier, it hit a new low against the euro. Treasuries rallied due to typical flight to quality. The VIX index was little changed at close after briefly breaking the magic 30 level earlier. The new lows on NYSE and Nasdaq exceeded 1500 issues with unusually heavy volume. The market breath was negative on NYSE and slightly positive on the Nasdaq.