Financial Aggregator

Yesterday’s earnings shortfalls (Alcoa, Chevron, Electronic Arts) were completely forgotten today, as the market resumed its bullish ways, with the major indexes approaching / making new 52-week highs. Commentators note however that today’s recovery move failed to attract much volume, with less than 1 billion shares traded on the NYSE (1.1 billion shares is a rough recent average). Early in the session, there was a modicum of weakness in the tech space, with Google (and other large-cap tech stocks) faltering. Google made headlines, suggesting it may pull out of China because of censorship and computer-security disputes.

Executives from major financial players such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of American appeared before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a bipartisan panel charged with the investigating of the financial crisis form the fall of 2008. In spite of the fact that financial executives of the largest banks in the US are currently testifying on Capitol Hill in regards to the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, the financial sector was a market leader today, gaining 1.3% (the banking sector even advanced by 1.8%).

In a related matter, President Barack Obama is expected to announce tomorrow exactly how the government will proceed to collect money from a number of major US financial firms, to recoup up to $120 billion of taxpayer-funded bailout (TARP) funds. Obama is seen as being pressured by high unemployment and widespread public outrage about banker bonuses on the heels of the global financial crisis that necessitated these huge financial bailouts. Some potential exceptions are being discussed for automakers, and perhaps for insurer AIG.

According to the Treasury Department, in December the US federal budget deficit reached an all-time high, exacerbated by the deep recession and severe financial crisis. The deficit in December 2009 alone amounted to $91.85 billion. Furthermore, over the first three months of the current budget year (i.e., as of Oct. 1, 2009), the deficit exceeded $388.5 billion, coming in at more than 16% above the deficit seen during the same period a year earlier. The total deficit for 2009 was calculated at $1.42 trillion, three times as high as that seen in 2008. For 2010, the Obama Administration is projecting a deficit exceeding $1.5 trillion.

Thursday:
	8:30 AM CONTINUING CLAIMS Jan-02: 4950K / 4802K INITIAL CLAIMS Jan-09: 438K / 434K RETAIL SALES M/M (Dec): 0.4% / 1.3% RETAIL SALES (X-AUTOS) M/M (Dec): 0.3% / 1.2% IMPORT PRICE INDEX M/M (Dec): -0.1% / 1.7% 10:00 AM BUSINESS INVENTORIES M/M (Nov): 0.0% / 0.2%

Friday:
	8:30 AM CPI M/M (Dec): 0.2% /0.4% CPI M/M (core) (Dec): 0.1% / 0.0% CPI Y/Y (Dec): 2.8% / 1.8% CPI Y/Y (core) (Dec): 1.8% / 1.7% NEW YORK FED (EMPIRE) (Jan): 11.0 / 2.6 9:15 AM INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION M/M (Dec): 0.6% / 0.8% CAPACITY UTILIZATION (Dec): 71.7% / 71.3% 10:00 AM MICHIGAN CONSUMER SENTIMENT (Jan P): 73.7 / 72.5

By noreply@noemail.com (HGH Press)