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On top of all that, with oil markets barely responding to last week's unexpected drop in US gasoline inventories, oil prices are poised to move with any big news this week, especially a large move in the US inventory report Wednesday.
Because the first of the month fell on Friday, the week opens with a labor market report, the Challenger Job Cut report announced layoffs , that normally comes out ahead of the Employment Situation report. That's followed Tuesday by the Conference Board's Employment Trends Index. If those mirror Friday's jobs report, it could get stocks off to a weak start.
Update on the Planned Layoff situation.* The Challenger Job Cut report jut released shows that the July planned layoffs rose by 26 percent in comparison of June 2008. "Planned layoffs at U.S. companies totaled 103,312 in July, compared with June's 81,755, employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc said," writes Reuters.
The Tuesday Fed meeting should be big news, but the consensus forecast is that the Fed will leave the federal funds rate unchanged at 2%. The European Central Bank and the Bank of England will also make monetary policy/interest rate announcements, on Thursday. The dollar could still use the support of a drop in the rate spread between Europe and the US, but don't look for it from any of these three meetings.
The National Association of Realtors will release its latest Pending Home Sales Index Thursday. With the latest housing numbers all weak, the ball is in the home buyer's court getting the housing market and the mortgage market off dead center. Pending Home Sales and the Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey will likely be the first indicators when that starts to happen.
* See more information on the Financial Roadmap series here. Earnings reports are companies of interest, NOT recommendations.
Source: Reported by Tom Hanna http://financial.tom-hanna.org/
* The July planned report update is from HULIQ editor.
Posted August 4th, 2008 by Armen Hareyan
