Fed Chairman Bernanke Gets Encore

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Today's Business

The day's business includes the announcement of another show for the often controversial Chairman Ben Bernanke. We will also receive home price data, consumer confidence, weekly same-store sales, and a slew of corporate earnings reports.

Fed Chairman Bernanke - Part II

President Obama renominated Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke to another term today, but his confirmation will depend on the decision of an angry mob (otherwise known as Congress). We are guessing many of you will pose argument to the President's decision, but truth be told, Mr. Bernanke has done about as well a job as anyone might have, in my humble opinion. Where the Chairman has presided over the greatest recession in history, another individual might now be finding his way through the second great depression. Chairman Bernanke decided early that he would not be recorded by history that way when he stepped in, in unprecedented manner, to rescue several major financial institutions (though not always their shareholders).

Several of you will point to the institution he and Treasury Chief Paulson left out, and the repercussions of that miss (that being Lehman Brothers). Also, many will argue that the Chairman may have helped to misguide the Treasury Secretary and President at times, and that the group of them resembled a hen house during a culling, rather than level headed leadership.

However, the view here is that the Chairman not only handled his responsibilities well through a time of turmoil, but stepped up to lead a clueless Congress, and a President who needed his guidance, through a period of chaos. I believe he showed unexpected leadership skills at a time of need, and proved to be stronger than his humble stature indicated. Most importantly, the market has confidence in him, as indicated by his affect upon it after speaking in Jackson Hole. Today's market start higher is yet another indicator.

ICSC Weekly Same-Store Sales

Weekly and monthly retail sales data has been troubling of late, and raises concern that unemployment and credit constraint could lead low consumer confidence and spending to drive a double dip recession, if not the slow recovery seen by our Fed Chairman.

Today's sales data, covering the week ended August 22, showed improvement over the prior week's results. Sales rose 0.6% over the aforementioned period, but still fell 0.2% when compared against the prior year's result. Last week's report showed a 0.6% drop in that regard, so even in decline we had improvement.

S&P Case Shiller Home Price Index

The Home Price Index fell 14.9% in the second quarter, which marked improvement over Q1's 19.1% annual rate of decline. Month-to-month comparison shows the housing market stabilizing and prices improving. This publisher's quarterly report also shows the first quarterly improvement in three years.

Consumer Confidence

At 10:00 a.m., the Conference Board reports on Consumer Confidence. Bloomberg's consensus of economists sees improvement here, to 48.0 for August, from 46.6 in July. Recall that consumer confidence took a step back in July, after gaining earlier this year.

FFHA House Price Index

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FFHA) will post its Home Price Index at 10:00 a.m. Economists are looking for a 0.4% improvement for June, versus the 0.9% gain in May.

Investor Confidence

State Street's Investor Confidence Index is due at 10:00. This measure of actual risk held in investment portfolios may slow its gain for August, if it does not retrench, due to the valuation and economic concerns that have surfaced through the month. Investor confidence improved to 119.4 in July, from 115.8 in June.

Corporate EPS Schedule

The earnings schedule includes Bank of Montreal (NYSE: BMO), Big Lots (NYSE: BIG), Blue Coat Systems (Nasdaq: BCSI), Borders Group (NYSE: BGP), Casual Male Retail Group (Nasdaq: CMRG), Chico’s FAS (NYSE: CHS), Corinthian Colleges (Nasdaq: COCO), CRH plc (NYSE: CRH), Daktronics (Nasdaq: DAKT), Dycom Industries (NYSE: DY), Hain Celestial Group (Nasdaq: HAIN), International Rectifier (NYSE: IRF), Lihir Gold Ltd (Nasdaq: LIHR), Linktone (Nasdaq: LTON), Medtronic (NYSE: MDT), On Track Innovations (Nasdaq: OTIV), QAD Inc. (Nasdaq: QADI), Retalix (NYSE: RTLX), Sanderson Farms (Nasdaq: SAFM), Staples (Nasdaq: SPLS), TTI Telecom (Nasdaq: TTIL), Tuesday Morning Corp. (Nasdaq: TUES), Urologix (Nasdaq: ULGX), Versant (Nasdaq: VSNT) and others.


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