Source: ForexYard Eyes Turn to Philly after Dismal Manufacturing Report from NY
The US economy will be publishing its weekly unemployment claims numbers today alongside more manufacturing data, this time out of Philadelphia. After the Empire State manufacturing report revealed a sharp downturn in New York, today's Philly manufacturing report may be the game-changer in today's market. Traders should be eyeing this news for hints at the second quarter's industrial and manufacturing outlook.

This week we look at data from the Bank of International Settlements, by which (if someone does a lot of work) you can figure out how much US banks have written in credit default swaps to banks in Europe on Greek, Irish, and Portuguese debt. The details should not make you happy. I meditate on whether one should buy a house now, and then discuss “the way out” of all this mess and why we will Muddle Through. Oh, and I’ll ask you for help on yet another book project, on creating jobs. And all while trying to finish early enough to go to dinner. So let’s get started.

Lululemon (LULU) is one name I've watched from afar the past few years, and never taken a part of - mostly due to valuations.  Very similar to Chipotle (CMG).  In retrospect a bad decision - highly valued stocks can remain so for quarters if not years.   Something I am trying to incorporate more in my framework the past 6 months.

Based on today's results, there appears to be no recession in the yoga set.  Obviously investors the past few weeks thought otherwise as the stock sold off sharply. Always a bull market somewhere.

Source: ForexYard Forex Traders Weighing Options between Bad and Worse
Traders this week are bouncing back and forth between an interest rate differential approach, which favors the EUR, and a debt concern approach which favors the USD. Both carry an ominous overtone for the global economy. Whichever of these approaches wins out will depend on data being released over the next several weeks of summer.

Source: ForexYard Euro Zone Struggling Once More with Debt
Though the USD is gaining ground on the euro, the blame lies not on US strength but in euro zone weakness. The EUR failed to break above key resistance levels and promptly dropped as a result, pushing the EUR/USD pair back towards 1.4375 as . . .

U.S. premarket futures were down this morning on more hand wringing over sovereign debt issues in Europe.  However just after 9 AM, a surprise came in the form of the S&P rating agency which backhanded the U.S. in the form of a downgrade of the long term fiscal outlook.

Because the U.S. has, relative to its 'AAA' peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable.

Last week we discussed the unsurprising surprise of falling consumer confidence. Today a different report added some perspective. The Discover U.S. Spending Monitor (an index sponsored by the Discover credit card folks) revealed that a remarkable 42.4% of consumers will have no money left after they pay their bills this month. Or so they say, at least. We tend to believe them.
The interesting part is how responses varied by income level. For households making less than $40,000 a year, the share who spend every penny they make over hit a four-year high of 60.2%.

Global X Farming ETF (BARN), launched on 6/2/11, becomes the fourth food supply chain ETF introduced by Global X over a span of five weeks.  The new ETF attempts to comprehensively cover the farming sector by focusing on companies involved in agricultural products, livestock operations, and the manufacturing of farming equipment.

BlackRock, Inc. (BLK) yesterday (3/31/11) announced the listing of the iShares MSCI China Index Fund (MCHI).  The press release claims it is the first ETF to be benchmarked to the large cap and mid cap MSCI universe, providing exposure to the top 85% of Chinese equities by market cap.  However, MCHI becomes the twenty-third China . . .

It is been my belief that stocks and the economy have been locked in a secular bear market since March of 2000. During that period we’ve had two recessions and two cyclical bear markets. One of those recessions was the worst since the Great Depression and the last bear market in stocks was the . . .