Tuesday - June 16, 2009

Screenshot from http://finance.yahoo.com/

The market dropped second day in a row. S&P500 has dropped -3.6% since yesterday. Crude oil fell -$0.15 to $70.47 a barrel.
Building of new homes and apartments rose 17.2% in May, highest in the last 3 months. A large percentage of it comes from multifamily housing. This raises the supply and demand issue - the unbalanced one. There is already a huge back log of existing homes which will take 10.2 months to deplete (we've talked about it in my previous blog here). Adding more new homes to one side of the equation might not be encouraging to the market. It will drag house prices down more.
The Federal Reserve said industrial production dropped a larger-than-expected 1.1 percent in May as the recession hurt demand for manufactured goods including cars, machinery and household appliances.
Bestbuy (BBY) reported a weak Q1. Earning per share is better than expected but sales fell more than expected. BBY says it is expecting a difficult environment. Its stock fell 7%. BBY is the first major retail to report Q1. I guess we have a taste of how the retail market has been doing.

Wednesday - May 27, 2009

Screenshot from http://finance.yahoo.com/

The market spit out most of the gain from yesterday. S&P500 dropped 17.27 points. Investors are cashing out and they are cautious, in my opinion.

The National Association of Realtors reported April home sale data. Home sales were up 2.9% in April compared to last month. Inventories will take 10.2 months to deplete, which is very long. 45% of the sale in April was destressed sale or foreclosures. You can read more about home sale data from the New York Times here. Jim Cramer once predicted that housing market will bottom out in June09. I don't see how that is going to happen.

HK market is closed for holiday. It jumped 893.71 pts yesterday. Is the bull really running? Analysts say that hot money is flowing into Asia. World economy is too interconnected. No any money will flow in one direction.