DOW – 107 = 17,172
SPX – 16 = 1994
NAS – 52 = 4527
10 YR YLD – .02 = 2.57%
OIL – .91 = 91.50
GOLD – 1.40 = 1215.80
SILV – .06 = 17.83
It’s not a huge week for reports, but we do get a couple worth keeping an eye out for. On Thursday, we’ll get the durable goods report for August; and on Friday, we’ll get the third and final revision to second-quarter Gross Domestic Product. This morning we saw the report on existing home sales.
The National Association of Realtors said existing home sales dropped 1.8 percent to an annual rate of 5.05 million units. The decrease was the first in four months, although the sales pace was still the second highest for the year. Investors had propped up the market by snapping up distressed properties and converting them into rental units, but last month they accounted for only 12 percent of transactions, which was the smallest share since November 2009; all cash sales made up 23 percent of transactions in August. First-time buyers accounted for 29 percent of sales, well below the 40% to 45% considered normal. The inventory of unsold homes on the market increased 4.5 percent from a year-ago to 2.31 million in August. At August’s sales pace, it would take 5.5 months to clear houses from the market, unchanged from July.
A new survey from CNBC called the Corporate Perception Indicator takes a look how individuals and business executives view corporations around the globe. Emerging markets tend to look at corporations more favorably than developed nations; 72 percent of the public in emerging economies saw corporations as a “source of hope, rather than fearâ€, compared with 52 percent in developed economies.
The survey also found that 57 percent of the general population and 53 percent of executives believed that corporations take advantage of tax loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of tax, including 70 percent of the general population and 67 percent of business leaders in the United States, agreed that it was important for corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.
Another survey, this one from Rutgers University, finds more than 20% of workers laid off in the last five years haven’t found new jobs. Among laid-off Americans who say they’ve found a new job, 46% said it came with a pay cut and 44% reported a drop in status. The survey also found increasing pessimism among the unemployed; 36% said the economy will never fully recover from the recession, up from 29% last January, when they were asked the same question. Likewise, 40% said that the availability of good jobs for those who want to work will never return to pre-recession levels, up from 34%.
This week’s economic calendar also includes a couple of high level conferences. The G20, or Group of 20 industrialized and developed countries just wrapped up a meeting in Australia, a test run for the November G20 leaders’ forum that will include Russia. The assorted and sundry finance ministers and central bankers at the weekend meeting think they’ve figured out a set of policies and initiatives to add an additional 1.8% economic growth, but they also issued a warning about a build-up of excessive risk in the financial markets.
