Quake: A 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit the Northeast yesterday. I am guessing that most of the readers felt it. Although its epicenter was in Virginia, I heard reports that people felt it as far west as Illinois and as far north as Martha’s Vineyard and parts of Canada. The first tweet about the earthquake appeared 24 seconds after the event, and within a minute, 40,000 tweets about the quake were registered.
Problem Banks: The government’s list of problem banks decreased in the second quarter. This is the first decrease since before the financial crisis. Further, the number of bank failures in the first half declined 44% from 2010.
Durable Goods: The market has recently been disappointed with some of the economic news. Today, durable goods surprised on the upside, turning futures from being somewhat negative to flat.
GOLD: As I type this, Gold is down over $100 today. This seems like a lot, but after its incredible move up, the last two days seem like a minor correction.
Gold (One Year)
Recession: An analyst I saw on CNBC believes stocks are pricing in a 70% chance of recession. This makes sense to me, although I would not say it is true across the board. There are many stocks trading all the way back to 2008-2009 levels, but they have better balance sheets and profit margins now than they did then. Other groups of stocks are still measurably higher than they were back then. Among other fears, stocks have clearly reacted to the prospect of a potential recession. The question is whether many of these stocks have overreacted or not.
Market Today: The market was remarkably calm today, at least as of 3:00. Tech caught my attention as being weak, otherwise things were mixed.
The blog is arriving early today since I am getting a needle jammed into my knee at 3:30. Those of you that know me personally know that I have been hobbling around for quite a while. Maybe this series of injections will actually help, we’ll see.
Have a good day! Brent
