Posted on 08/20/2013 7:35:09 AM PDT by whitedog57
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index fell to -0.10 for July. That is less than the expectation of -0.15 and a decline from the June reading of -0.13. But an improvement over the REVISED print of -0.23 for June.
chci
Thank goodness for revisions that make even a lousy print look positive!
Stocks fell in Europe and Asia and oil led declines in commodities on speculation the Federal Reserve will curb bond purchases next month. U.S. equities were little changed and Treasuries advanced.
The MSCI All Country World Index lost 0.5 percent to 369.20at 9:37 a.m. in New York, the lowest since July 11 on an intraday basis. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 1.3 percent, with trading volume 16 percent more than the 30-day average. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.1 percent as results from Home Depot Inc. and Best Buy Co. beat estimates. Treasuries rose, pushing the 10-year yield down from a two-year high. Oil sank 1.5 percent. The rupiah tumbled 2 percent per dollar to the lowest since April 2009.
Investors withdrew $8.4 billion from emerging-market exchange-traded funds this year amid a selloff that sent India’s rupee to a record low and Indonesian stocks down more than 19 percent from an all-time high three months ago, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Weakening economies from India to Indonesia are fueling pessimism in markets already concerned the Fed, which publishes minutes of its July meeting tomorrow, will startcutting bond purchases in September.
“The U.S. is going to unwind a historical amount of stimulus and it’s going to make markets nervous,” said Nader Naeimi, the head of dynamic asset allocation at AMP Capital Investors Ltd. in Sydney, which manages more than $130 billion. “In the next couple of months, until U.S. bond yields settle, we’re going to see some choppy trades” in global equities, he said.
Benefits of more purchases “are likely to be negligible,” Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said in an interview in Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper on Aug. 18.
The US Treasury 10 year yield is down this morning on hopes that The Fed won’t taper. Even though, as Lacker said, the effects would be negligible.
ust10082013A8
But since May 2, 2013, the trend has been rising,
ustmay2
Let’s what the rest of the day brings in the Obama Bumper Car Economy (bumped by The Fed).
obama-bumper-car
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