June 18th-June 22nd
This past Wall Street week reminds us of a big bowl of Lucky Charms, but all the rainbow marshmallows (fact: they’re officially called “marbits” in the artificial food industry) were replaced with rocks – a big serving of news, but nothing good/sweet. The major headline was the Federal Reserve’s 2-day policy-setting meeting. Despite increasingly negative econ reports since April, the Dow had rallied leading up to the event as investors anticipated the central bank would take big stimulus action to boost the economy. But Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced they would only continue to keep interest rates low to encourage borrowing, disappointing expectations of a stronger response. World econ data continued to flop: US May total housing sales & starts are down, last week’s unemployment claims were revised up, Chinese manufacturing dropped for the 8th straight month and European manufacturing contracted. In Europe, Greece’s political parties managed to form a coalition with the goal of keeping Greece in the euro zone, but their success is still a long-shot, failing to convince markets. And in the corporate world, Microsoft introduced its own fancy new tablet (the “Surface” has a kickstand/keyboard, but talk about showing up late to the party) and Burger King stock is back trading on the public market after the company restructured (if the new “Oreo Sundae Shake” doesn’t inspire you, then we don’t know what the f**k does). On the bright side, Moody’s late-week credit downgrade of 15 major banks was shrugged off by investors who were prepared for harsher ratings cuts, but the Dow still finished the overall week down nearly 1%.
Links Worth Snacking On:
- The Atlantic – 2,000 years of economic history in one tiny graph
- CNN – Oracle CEO’s new Hawaiian island is famous for pineapples/Bill Gates’ wedding….
- Washington Post – …And speaking of billionaires, this handy chart shows how we can learn a lot about a country by their big guys
- Video – The comical complexity of the Euro debt crisis explained in 2 minutes
This Week:
- Monday – May New Home Sales, Dallas Federal Reserve Regional Manufacturing Survey for June
- Tuesday – April S&P Home Prices Index, Richmond Federal Reserve Regional Manufacturing Survey for June
- Wednesday – May Durable Goods Orders (airplanes, appliances and other big items), May Pending Home Sales
- Thursday – Major EU Leaders Summit, Weekly Jobless Claims, 3rd reading on 1st Quarter GDP
- Friday – Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Survey for June, May Consumer Spending
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