Economic news from Europe continues to deteriorate.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010. 9:15 am.
It was reported last night that the Ifo German Business Confidence Index has declined in February for the first time in 10 months. The problem is reported as a noticeable cooling in the wholesale and retail sectors. Germany is the largest economy in Europe.
The news follows the recent report that economic growth in the 16 Eurozone countries unexpectedly slowed to just 0.1% in the 4th quarter, and of course the reports of serious debt problems in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
Yesterday in the U.S. Market.
The market traded in a very narrow range, with the Dow moving only 65 points between it intraday high and its intraday low, on very low volume of fewer than 1 billion shares traded on the NYSE.
Yesterday’s intraday chart:
The Dow closed down 19 points, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 closed down 0.1%. The NYSE Composite closed down 0.1%. The Nasdaq closed down 0.1%. The Russell 2000 closed up 0.1%. The DJ Transportation Avg. closed up 0.8%.
Asian markets were mixed last night.
The DJ Asia-Pacific Index closed up 0.4%.
Among individual countries:
Australia closed down 0.1%. China closed down 0.7%. Hong Kong closed up 1.2%. India closed up 0.3%. Indonesia closed up 0.8%. Japan closed down 0.5%. Singapore closed up 0.9%. South Korea closed up 0.1%. Taiwan closed up 0.5%.
If you’d like to see a three-month chart of these indexes and others, click here, and then click on any of the markets in the list at the left side of the page it takes you to.
Markets this Morning.
European markets are down, on average of about 0.5%.
Oil is down $1.00 a barrel at $79.30 after peaking above $80 yesterday.
Gold is down $1.70 an ounce at $1,111 at the moment.
Markets in the U.S.
In the U.S., a number of important economic reports will be coming out this week, mostly from the middle to end of the week, including consumer confidence, new home sales, existing home sales, etc.
To see the full schedule of the week’s reports click here, and look at the left side of the page it takes you to.
The S&P Case Shiller Home Pricing Index was just released and showed that home prices fell 0.2% in December and 1.1% in the 4th quarter.
The next report economic report will be Consumer Confidence at 10 am.
Not much to move the market this morning, a few earnings reports, as market wait for Fed Chairman Bernanke’s testimony regarding interest rates, etc., also not likely to be a market-mover.
Our pre-open indicators are fractionally negative, pointing to the Dow being down 10 points or so in the early going, not meaningful as to direction.
Stock Market Patterns.
The next weekly pattern is that the week after options expirations, which this week is, tends to be negative, particularly when the options expirations week was more positive than usual.
Interesting Charts of the Morning.
Markets in many areas still looking like they may have topped out in October and November, with the potential short-term resistance at the 21-day moving average still not resolved.
Please scroll down to see other recent ‘Interesting Charts of the Morning’ and commentary.
To read my weekend newspaper column ‘Why Talk of Re-Regulation of Wall Street is Just Talk!’ click here!
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