Monday Market Recap

Monday already.  Market has a mixed tone as Citi beat, Apple guidance disappoints, Rio and BHP call it a day for their JV and Walmart brings a megadebt offering.  Nothing occurring today that changes my outlook on the markets.  Liked the IP number today (for the trend if nothing else), bank mess seems manageable (ugly, but manageable), Europe was quiet (well, Europe ex France) and political market commentary was somewhat muted.  Still long midcap growth (VOT) with a mild small cap exposure (IJR), bonds (AGG) - with a corporate tilt (LQD) and short long treasuries (TBT), own preferred through closed ends (JPS, PFD) and continue to like C$ and A$.

How about a couple numbers:


Equities:

S&P is posting stale data, so lets move to a different source (yep, Google):

Summary:

And a little sector action:

Financials found their legs today with Citi's earnings, Basic materials took it on the chin with the breakup of the BHP/RIO ore JV, healthcare just continues to motor along.

Growth/Value:

Value steeling some of growth's thunder in midcap space (IWS = midcap val, IWP=midcap growth).

Small cap eating up midcap's advantage (IWO= smallcap Growth).  Keep your eye on this.  Combine the two and...

BOOM, smallcap value (IWN=smallcap value) making its move.  I think it is too early for this to stick, but I will be keeping my eye on it.

Fixed Income:

Mr. Rollback borrows $5B from the markets today.  They buy everything cheap.

IG finally had an up breadth day with advancers leading decliners by 1.38x, but with lower volume.  HY barely held on to a positive adv/decl ratio, turning in a 1.01x on lower volume.

Curve steepening brought to you by stronger belly of the curve.  Still like the steepener trade.

Forex:

Uncle sam gains some ground (as of writing after giving some turf earlier.  QE2 is not going to allow for much gain here.




Errata:

Bank of America announced on Monday that it would resume home foreclosures in nearly two dozen states, despite the running controversy over how banks handled tens of thousands of cases of homeowners facing eviction. Bank of America, the nation’s largest bank and the servicer of roughly one in five American mortgages, insisted that it had not found a single example where a foreclosure proceeding was brought in error.
Bank of America said it would resume foreclosures in the 23 states where judicial approval was required after an internal review turned up no evidence that cases were filed in error. However, Bank of America’s suspension will remain in effect in the 27 other states that do not require a judge’s approval to foreclose, as the bank’s paperwork review proceeds state by state. It was the only bank to initiate a nationwide freeze.Not the end of this issue, not at all.


The Journal found that all of the 10 most popular apps on Facebook were transmitting users' IDs to outside companies.  The apps, ranked by research company Inside Network Inc. (based on monthly users), include Zynga Game Network Inc.'s FarmVille, with 59 million users, and Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille. Three of the top 10 apps, including FarmVille, also have been transmitting personal information about a user's friends to outside companies.  The information being transmitted is one of Facebook's basic building blocks: the unique "Facebook ID" number assigned to every user on the site. Since a Facebook user ID is a public part of any Facebook profile, anyone can use an ID number to look up a person's name, using a standard Web browser, even if that person has set all of his or her Facebook information to be private. For other users, the Facebook ID reveals information they have set to share with "everyone," including age, residence, occupation and photos.   You can't be paranoid enough.


Good luck, lets be careful out there.