每日市場點評 --- July 29, 2008

The market rallied sharply on this Tuesday. All three major indices were higher by more than 2%, essentially erasing all losses from the previous session and then some. The news on the economic front was dismal but still managed to beat expectation. Start with the S&P/Case – Shiller home-price index for May. The index dropped 15.8% from a year earlier, the biggest decline on record. Economists were looking for a drop of 16%. On a month-to-month basis, home prices decreased 0.9% in May from the prior month compared to a drop of 1% in April. Among the 20 areas covered by the index, all of them showed a year-over-year decrease in prices for the second consecutive month and 13 showed a drop in home prices on a month-to-month basis. In a separate note, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index for July came at 51.9 vs. 50.1 expected. Crude price dropping to the lowest level since May 6th also helped the market sentiment.

Energies were among the only major sector that posted a loss due to lower crude price. Financials and transportations were among the best performers for the session. The latter was of course main beneficiary of falling oil price while the former enjoyed a massive rally despite further write-downs reported by a major brokerage firm. The CRB commodity index continued to slide and closed at the lowest level since early May. The index has lost over 11% for the month but year-to-date, it was still up more than 10%. The US dollar was higher against most major currencies. Treasuries sold off as money fled away from the previously safe heaven. The VIX index tumbled 2 points. The market breath was positive on both NYSE and Nasdaq with decent volume.