Friends
Collapsing share prices in China helped continue the weakness in U. S. stocks, as markets opened lower this morning and spent the entire day in negative territory. In China, the government has done most everything they can to stop falling stock prices, including halting trading in many of the “publicly” trading shares, but it appears to no avail. The old saying is, if you can’t sell what you want, sell what you can, and that seems to be the case in China as the shares that were still trading continued to fall.
As for us, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 127 points to finish the day at 17,440. The S&P 500 was down 11 points to close at 2067. Gold was up $7 to trade at $1093 per ounce, while oil was down $1.03 to trade at $47.11 per barrel WTI.
It will be a busy week for traders as we have another full earnings calendar along with a bevy of economic data. The Durable Goods number we got today was actually pretty good, and as the week unfolds along with the FOMC meeting that begins tomorrow and ends with the statement on Wednesday, we get our first look at 2nd quarter GDP on Thursday. It appears that although not necessarily robust, the U.S. economy is much better than other developed nations at the moment. That is causing strength in the dollar which is causing massive weakness in commodity prices.
We’ll let you know how earnings season begins to wind down, and how this week’s economic data and Fed meeting play out. Should be a busy week.
Have a nice evening everyone.
