U.S. Stocks Fall, S&P 500 Completes Fourth Straight Weekly Loss

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks dropped, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to a fourth straight weekly loss, as a deeper-than-estimated slide in consumer confidence added to concern the economic recovery will be delayed.

CIT Group Inc., the century-old lender that trades in the bond market as if it may fail, slid 18 percent on concern the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. won’t guarantee its bond sales. Chevron Corp. helped lead the Dow Jones Industrial Average lower as oil completed its worst weekly drop since January and the company said the weaker dollar was slashing profit. Technology shares rose, limiting the market’s slide, following analyst upgrades of Yahoo! Inc. and MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (more)

Wall Street Journal, July10, 2009

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Three Stock Picks for a Cloudy Market

After yesterday’s excitement, the market decided to just coast today. The biggest news occurred last night, when Alcoa (AA) reported its quarterly results. The Street liked the numbers, and the stock traded higher in pre-market trading. It then slowly sold off, however, and ended up closing down 2.43%.
Today on the Buzz and Banter, Minyan Peter gave his thoughts on the company:
"Last night Alcoa beat lowered expectations.
"But to me that's just data. The message was in the headline - "Solid Cash Performance".
(more)

Futures Forecast for July: Risk-Aversion Returns, Doldrums May Follow

We’re seeing a bit of fear and profit-taking in early July in the equity and commodity markets after a strong second-quarter performance. Remember the adage: “sell in May and go away?” Perhaps this year we are getting a delay. Let’s take a look at what July might have in store for some of the major markets, and possible trading strategies.
In the second quarter, the “green shoots” were starting to develop in the economy, and stocks and commodities were the beneficiaries. The S&P 500 ended the quarter up 15.2 percent, its best quarterly performance since 1992. The U.S. dollar fell 5.5 percent in value, and most commodities saw bullish trends. The Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index, which represents a basket of 19 commodities, finished 12 percent higher for the quarter. Among individual commodities, crude oil saw a 41 percent rally, the biggest quarterly gain since 1990. Copper rallied 23 percent and was up 62 percent on the year. Sugar hit a three-year high the last trading day in June, and is up about 50 percent on the year. (more)

Currency Trader July 2009

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Who’s That Knocking At My Door?

For several weeks I urged taking profits in many positions in the model portfolio in hopes some big opportunity would come knocking again. During that time some people questioned why sell while the going was so good? I consistently stated I wanted investors to build up a very comfortable position so they could easily take advantage of when the rap on the door returns.

Proving how crazy this prognosticating business can be, now that an anticipated opportunity presents itself to buy below “retail”, the very people who struggled with the thought of selling just a few weeks ago now appear too afraid to buy. I’ve purposely taken serious profits on several fronts these past couple of months so the model portfolio could be in a position of strength to act aggressively if the big opportunity presented itself. I believe it has! (more)

McAlvany Report: An Interview With Marc Faber

Marc Faber July Gloom Boom and Doom Update

Below is a summary of the July Gloom Boom and Doom update. Readers who are not subscribed to the newsletter will find these summaries interesting. We will try to post monthly summaries when and if they become available.

1 . Earlier this year it was easy to call for a strong rebound in asset markets. Markets were extremely over-sold and sentiment was extremely negative. This is no longer the case.

2. Bullish sentiment is higher than at the 2007 peak. (more)