7/1/09

Yesterday the Conference Board announced that Consumer Confidence dropped in June. Based on that alone, you would believe that the economy is not out of the woods yet – which is probably true. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 U.S. Cities decreased in April from a year earlier following an 18.7 percent drop in March. But the measure was down 0.6 percent in April from the prior month, the best performance since June 2008. Eight of the 20 cities showed an increase in prices from March. In the last 12 months the worst performers were Phoenix (-35%), Las Vegas (-32%) and San Francisco (-28%).
Tomorrow we have the Employment report, which is predicted to show Non-farm Payrolls down, with the unemployment rate hitting 9.6%, already at the highest level in more than 25 years. Today we have Construction Spending and Institute of Supply Manager's Survey. With the employment report tomorrow and very thin trading ahead of the holiday on Friday we do not want to accept much risk here. Stay tuned and let me know if you have any questions.