每日市場點評 --- August 4, 2008

The market started the new week in a relatively quiet fashion. All three major indices finished the session modestly lower ahead of tomorrow’s FOMC meeting. Of course, almost nobody on Wall Street expects any movement from the Fed but as always, the post-meeting volatility will be interesting to watch. The news on the economic front was mostly positive. Personal income for June increased 0.1% from a revised 1.8% rise in May. Economists were looking for a drop of 0.2%. Personal spending also rose more than expected, so did consumer inflation, which climbed 0.8% and 0.3% if stripping out food and energy. In a separate note, factory orders increased more than forecast in June. Actually the 1.7% gain in bookings to $457.6 billion was the biggest jump in 2008. Finally, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, firing announcements increased to 103,312 in July, up more than 140% compared to one year ago. And that was the biggest year-over-year percentage increase in almost 7 years.

Basic materials and energies were among the worst performers for the session. As we mentioned last week, any rebound in those two sectors would be temporary and unless something dramatically happened to commodity prices, those sectors have peaked. On the winners’ list, we had names like healthcare and consumer staple. The CRB commodity index tumbled almost 15 points and closed barely above 400. It is the largest single day decline since March. The US dollar moved higher against most major currencies. Treasuries lost some ground ahead of tomorrow’s Fed meeting. Currently the odds of the Fed increasing 25bps in its September meeting are around 30% but this number could easily change in less than 24 hours. The VIX index rose almost 1 point. The market breath was negative on both NYSE and Nasdaq with relatively quiet volume.