All Eyes on Washington

After starting the Monday session very weakly, equity traders decided to take prices higher, led by the Industrials (XLI +1.9%) and Financials (XLF +1.1%), held back only by the risk-averse Consumer Staples (XLP -1.1%). The major indexes ended the day mixed as stocks generally traded in a tight range ahead of details on the Obama stimulus package and more details on Geithner's TARP II.

The S&P 500 (+1.29 +0.15% to 869.89), the DJIA (-9.72 -0.12% to 8270.87), and the NASDAQ Composite (-0.15 -0.01% to 1591.56) were about as close to flat-line as the monitor can show.

The Toronto Composite (+39.26 +0.44% to 9047.28) closed higher, but the Venture Board (-8.24 -0.91% to 901.10) took a breather, as did the Sao Paulo Brazil Bovespa, which closed down -1.53% to 42100.1.

Earlier Friday, the Asia-Pacific equity markets were mixed, but quiet: Nikkei 225 (-0.29% to 7945.9) and Australia (-0.50% to 3428.6) were small losers, while Hong Kong (+0.81% to 13880.6); Shanghai (+1.82% to 2265.2); and India’s Sensex BSE 30 (+0.66% to 9647.5) were winners.

Also today (at 7:37am ET), the French CAC (-0.59%), German DAX (-0.84%), and UK FTSE 100 (-0.58%) were soft due to a small pull-back in the banks ahead of the TARP II roll-out.

In New York Monday, none of the industry groups made much of an impression. The Banks ($BKX +2.2%) and REITs ($DJR +1.1%) saw some bids, while the Goldminers ($XAU -2.8%) continue to relax ahead of the spending bill and TARP II plan announcements.

$GOLD dropped -$21.50/oz to 892.80, probably under the weight of central bank selling ahead of the big money spending plans that surely depreciate the value of the $USD.

Crude Oil ($WTIC) lost -$0.61/bbl to 39.56. There is still a large gap between the March futures contracts of West Texas Intermediate and European Brent that must be closed one way or the other.

In the Cara 100, the action was mostly quiet. The winners were led by General Electric (GE +13.9%), Brunswick Corp (BC +7.5%), Deutsche Bank (DB +6.4%), as well as Russia's Vimpel Communications (VIP +6.3%) and Mobile TeleSystems (MBT +5.4%). The losers were Vale Mining (RIO -4.1%), Electronic Arts (ERTS -3.9%) as toymakers Hasbro (HAS) and Mattel (MAT) have also been reporting much lower consumer product sales, plus precious metal players, Silver Wheaton (SLW -3.3%) and Goldcorp (GG -3.0%), down with the pull-back in the bullion prices.

The bond market was quiet. The long Treasury Bond ($USB -0.14% to 125.67) lost 17 cents as yields creeped up a bit.

The forex market was also quiet ahead of the announcements to come from Washington. The US Dollar (-0.62% to 84.82) was soft again, while all the other currencies creeped higher, eg, the Euro (+0.53% to 130.06), the Pound (+0.70% to 149.07), Cdn Loonie (+0.28% to 82.21) and Yen (+0.42% to 109.31).

Tuesday morning at 7:37am ET (compared to the close last week), the spot prices of gold, palladium, platinum and silver were: 897.23 (909.90), 209 (210), 1025 (998), and 12.9625 (13.10), respectively. Precious metals appear to be holding up under mild selling pressure.

Today ought to be more interesting for traders. The equity futures are down a bit (-23 to 8195), but the April gold is up about +15.

Comments

[geewow:]

We at eye-on-washington.blog... appreciate as many eyes on Washington as possible.

Feb 11 09:57 AM