每日市場點評 --- July 18, 2008

The market finished the last trading session of the week in a mixed fashion. The Dow, after an eye-popping 484 points rally in the past two sessions, advanced another 50 points. The Nasdaq, on the other hand, lost 30 points due to disappointing earnings reports from Google and Microsoft. The S&P 500 was little changed in today’s trading and gained 1.7% for the week, which was the first gain in seven weeks. It was a light day in terms of economic news but several important earnings reports kept traders busy on this option expiry date. Another drop in crude price also provided some support to the broad market.

Financials were again among the best performers for the session. What a difference one week can make! After falling relentlessly in the past few weeks, financials snapped back strongly. Many biggest US banks, including JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, advanced more than 20% for the week. Of course, on a year-to-date basis, the sector was still down over 25%. Some of the year’s biggest winners, including oil producers, steels, coals, agricultures, however, started to lose steam heading into the second half of this year and the trend became more obviously this week. Crude oil posted the record loss in the week and closed at the lowest level since June 6th. The CRB commodity ended lower for the fifth consecutive session as strength in industrial metals was offset by weakness in energies, agricultures and precious metals. The index has lost over 7% for the month but year-to-date, it was still up more than 15%. The US dollar was higher against most major currencies. Treasuries continued to tumble as the previously safe-heaven is looking less attractive now. The VIX index ended the session lower by around 1 point. The market breath was positive on NYSE and slightly negative on Nasdaq.