Catching up on Our Summer Reading

Stocks gave back some ground Wednesday after Tuesday’s post holiday rally, which was likely simply the result of the investment community realizing the flurry on Fed fear was overdone. Here below please find all of Wednesday’s data and analysis for your review as you catch up on your summer reading.

Economic Events

The latest mortgage activity data arrived from the Mortgage Bankers Association Wednesday, and unfortunately continued a deeply negative trend for housing. This led us to author Higher Rates Exposing Underlying Housing Weakness on Wednesday. The report covering the period ending May 24 showed mortgage applications decreased by 8.8%, continuing a three week trend of similar declines. Applications tied to the purchases of homes increased this time though, by 3.0% on a seasonally adjusted basis. The Refinance Index decreased by 12%, as mortgage interest rates continued to increase through the period. We were first to raise the question about just how dependent housing is on synthetically low interest rates, and now we are warning readers to be mindful of the data lag in the home price index data, which may dangerously mislead investors at times of inflection.

The weekly retail same-store sales data from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) for the week ended May 25 showed a week-to-week sales decrease of 0.9%, versus the 0.2% increase the week before. On a year-to-year basis, sales were higher by 2.8%, versus the 3.1% increase in the prior week. The data may be affected by the Memorial Day holiday this week and next.

Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren spoke in Minneapolis on the economic outlook.

Corporate Events

The corporate schedule had the annual shareholder meeting of Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) at the lead. The Cowen & Company Technology, Media & Telecom Conference highlighted the presentation of Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT). The annual dbAccess Healthcare Conference offered news from Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT). The Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference offered presentations by Home Depot (NYSE: HD), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK).

The EPS schedule highlighted reports from Avago Technologies (Nasdaq: AVGO), Brown Shoe Company (NYSE: BWS), Chico’s FAS (NYSE: CHS), DSW (NYSE: DSW), Navarre (Nasdaq: NAVR) and RBC Bearings (Nasdaq: ROLL). Also look for news from Acorn Int’l (NYSE: ATV), Acquity Group (NYSE: AQ), AFC Enterprises (Nasdaq: AFCE), ATA Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAI), ChinaCache International (Nasdaq: CCIH), Daktronics (Nasdaq: DAKT), Eltek (Nasdaq: ELTK), Fresh Market (NYSE: TFM), Hawkins (Nasdaq: HWKN), Magal Security Systems (Nasdaq: MAGS), Michael Kors Holdings (Nasdaq: KORS), Movado (NYSE: MOV), Tilly’s (Nasdaq: TLYS), Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL) and Vimicro International (Nasdaq: VIMC).

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