Twiddling Our Thumbs

We are just twiddling our thumbs waiting and worrying about tomorrow’s Fed actions. The newest rumors are the scariest, with the president alluding to Bernanke sticking around as the Fed Chairman for longer than he would have liked. It’s generally known that Bernanke is not attending the annual gathering at Jackson Hole, meaning he will be gone by then, but an announcement of an imminent departure now would still shock the market. As if we did not have enough to worry about with regard to “tapering” talk and such. There is a good bit of economic data for your review here, along with all the usual info on international markets, commodities and stocks. For more in-depth analysis and research visit our stock market blog.

Our founder earned clients a 23% average annual return over five years as a stock analyst on Wall Street. "The Greek" has written for institutional newsletters, Businessweek, Real Money, Seeking Alpha and others, while also appearing across TV and radio. While writing for Wall Street Greek, Mr. Kaminis presciently warned of the financial crisis.

Twiddling Our Thumbs

Market ETF	June 18	Year-to-Date
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)	+0.2%	+15.7%
SPDR Dow Jones (DIA)	+0.3%	+16.6%
PowerShares (QQQ)	+0.4%	+12.5%

Economic Events

The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Monetary Policy Meeting begins today but we will not get any news until tomorrow. On Wednesday, the Fed will publish new economic forecasts along with its monetary policy release, all followed by a press conference by the Chairman. We are expecting an economic shocker.

Following the recent reporting of the PPI, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was reported today. Consumer prices rose 0.1%, against economists’ expectations for a 0.2% increase in May. However, when excluding volatile food and energy prices, the Core CPI rose 0.2%, which was consistent with expectations, but up slightly from the 0.1% increase of the prior month.

The regular weekly retail same-store sales report of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) was reported this morning. The report covering the period ending June 15 showed a week-to-week sales increase of 0.3%, versus the 2.7% decline in the period after Memorial Day. Sales increased by 1.9% the week before that. The start of summer could perhaps be to blame for the weak sales pace, but there’s one way to tell. Comparing the weeks on a year-to-year basis showed sales rose 2.5%, versus the 2.2% increase the week before. So, there is a seasonal issue at play for the start of summer (informally), but the yearly sales pace still just barely exceeds the rate of inflation.

Housing Starts followed yesterday’s builder confidence figure, which we took contention with. This report covers new residential construction starts and also offers information on new permit issuance for construction. In this report for May, housing starts ran at an annual pace of 914K, which was less than economists expected (955K). It was still better than April’s revised pace of 856K, upped from 853K. The annual pace of permit issuance, which is a forward looking figure, fell to 974K in May, down from 1.005 million in April, though it was about in line with economists’ expectations.

Overseas Markets

EUROPE	9:13 AM ET	ASIA/PACIFIC	CLOSE
EURO STOXX 50	Unchanged	NIKKEI 225	-0.2%
German DAX	+0.1%	Hang Seng	Unchanged
CAC 40	-0.1%	S&P/ASX 200	-0.2%
FTSE 100	+0.9%	Korean KOSPI	+0.9%
Greek ASE	+2.0%	BSE India SENSEX	-0.5%

President Obama visits German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, as he works on damage control regarding the NSA spying and perhaps future revelations from the renegade secret teller.

The Bank of Israel is having a party to send off Governor Stanley Fischer; Mario Draghi is in attendance for an accompanying conference, and so market moving news could result.

Commodity Markets (9:04 AM ET)

WTI Crude	+0.4%
Brent Crude	+0.5%
NYMEX Natural Gas	+0.7%
RBOB Gasoline	+0.5%
Gold Spot	-0.7%
Silver Spot	-0.1%
COMEX Copper	-0.8%
CBOT Corn	-0.1%
CBOT Wheat	+0.6%
CBOT Soybeans	+0.2%
ICE Cocoa	Unchanged
ICE Sugar	-0.9%
ICE Orange Juice Conc.	-0.2%
CME Live Cattle	-0.2%

Corporate Events

The corporate wire has the investor or analyst meetings of BlackRock (NYSE: BLK), FelCor Lodging (NYSE: FCH), Prudential Financial (NYSE: PRU) and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX). The Jefferies Global Consumer Conference presents Kohl’s (NYSE: KSS), Staples (Nasdaq: SPLS), Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) and Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF). The Wells Fargo Health Care Conference offers presentations by Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) and Agilent (NYSE: A). Look for earnings from Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE), China Cord Blood (NYSE: CO), FactSet (NYSE: FDS) and La-Z-Boy (NYSE: LZB). CommunicAsia, a huge mobile communications and broadcasting event, kicks off.

Today’s biggest gainers and losers were:

BIGGEST GAINERS	% Gain	BIGGEST LOSERS	% Drop
Gevo (Nasdaq: GEVO)	+22%	PostRock Energy (Nasdaq: PSTR)	-12%
Patriot National (Nasdaq: PNBK)	+20%	PowerShare DB Metal St (NYSE: BOS)	-16%
CombiMatrix (Nasdaq: CBMX)	+21%	BANRO (NYSE: BAA)	-5%
USMD (Nasdaq: USMD)	+7%	Ship Finance (NYSE: SFL)	-5%
Cytokinetics (Nasdaq: CYTK)	+12%	Orchard Supply (NYSE: OSH)	-10%
Camtek (Nasdaq: CAMT)	+9%	John Wiley & Sons (NYSE: JW-A)	-4%
Seanergy (Nasdaq: SHIP)	+9%	AMREP Corp. (NYSE: AXR)	-7%
Sunshine Heart (NYSE: SSH)	+6%	Opexa Therapeutics (Nasdaq: OPXA)	-8%
First Citizens (Nasdaq: FCZA)	+9%	Hudson Global (Nasdaq: HSON)	-8%
Redhill Biopharma (Nasdaq: RDHL)	+8%	TOP Ships (Nasdaq: TOPS)	-8%

Other Reports for Your Review:

A Powerful Catalyst for Annaly (NYSE: NLY) and mREITs Wednesday

Please see our disclosures at the Wall Street Greek website and author bio pages found there. This article and website in no way offers or represents financial or investment advice. Information is provided for entertainment purposes only.