Markets continue to digest in fine fashion with the major indexes finished mixed Monday, but well off the lows of the morning. The S&P 500 sold off relatively sharply mid morning to fall back below the 1400 level, but an afternoon buying spree put it back over 1404 by the close for a modest 0.13% loss. The NASDAQ followed a similar pattern, but led by titans Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) finished in the green to the tune of 0.05%.
Apple with its particulary heavy weight on the NASDAQ and to a lesser degree the S&P 500 carried much of the weight and Google had a stellar day on the back of firing 4000 workers in its newly acquired handset division. While not so fun on Main Street, less workers = more profits on Wall Street. As for Apple, it has quickly dealt with the selloff following its last earnings report and now is making a run for yearly highs near $640.
- Google Inc will slash 20 percent of the workforce of Motorola Mobility in the Internet search giant's largest job cuts ever as it moves to make more smartphones and fewer simple mobiles. The news sent Google's shares up nearly 3 percent but analysts said it was unclear if the cuts were enough to restore the fortunes of Motorola, whose last hit was the Razr flip-phone launched eight years ago.
This action of the past week has served to keep the market from getting oversold.
After the bell the disaster that is called Groupon (GRPN) continued its putrid life in the public markets, with yet another earnings guidance miss - citing the excuse of the day, Europe. The stock was down some 18% in after hours.
While all is currently quiet on the European front (after all it is August and the continent goes on vacation), Bill McBride of Calculated Risk put together a roadmap of key dates in the months ahead - September and October are going to be full of action.
Looking ahead to the rest of the week, there are some key U.S. economic data that should put some life into a lazy late summer atmosphere.
Tuesday and Wednesday bring inflation figures both at the producer (PPI) and consumer (CPI) level. Those who wish for a new program from the Federal Reserve will want to continue to see government figures on inflation to be constrained. Estimates for both figures are readings of 0.2% both for the headline figure and core.
Tuesday morning will be the release of retail sales for July. Expectations are for 0.3% and 0.4% ex autos - this figure should impact consumer discretionary stocks tomorrow.
Other key reports are NY Fed (Wednesday), Philly Fed (Thursday), Housing Starts (Thursday), and the University of Michigan Consumer sentiment index (Friday).
"the continent goes on vacation" - I enjoyed that comment very much.
The volume for both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ has seen some dry up since the beginning of last week. The Dow Jones (not shown) as well.