On a week that saw a late-day rally for the Dow & S&P Friday, managing to close in positive territory for the day, following a dismal jobs report, increased concerns over GM’s viability and another bailout for AIG, the US markets still fell 6% or greater for the week.
The US dollar ended the week mixed against most major currencies, gaining against the yen, but losing ground against the euro and pound sterling. Oil settled at $45.52 per barrel on expectations that OPEC may cut output targets at the March 15th meeting. Copper rallies on hopes of increased demand from China, gaining almost 10% for the week.
The S&P and NASDAQ put in their worst weekly performance since November, while the NASDAQ breached through its November lows for the first time.
The S&P 500 has lost almost $1.93 trillion dollars or 23.75% of its market cap 2009 YTD with GE the loss leader by $ value down $96.5 billion in market cap YTD.
63 companies in the S&P 500 have lost more than 50% of their market cap in 2009 YTD.
The Dow has lost $776 billion in market cap 2009 YTD.
The NASDAQ 100 has lost $196 billion in market cap 2009 YTD.
US Economic news out this week includes retail sales, released Thursday, which is the big data point economists are watching in the coming week. The NFIB small business survey is issued Tuesday, as is wholesale trade. Weekly jobless claims and business inventories are reported Thursday, and international trade, import prices and consumer sentiment data is released on Friday.
Thursday March 12th could be the interesting day this week. On that date, a House financial services subcommittee plans a hearing on mark-to-market accounting rules, which have been blamed for forcing banks to report billions of dollars in write-downs.
Stocks will continue to wobble until the right prescription to help fix the ailing financial sector. Investors await news of a plan from the U.S. Treasury to remove the troubled assets from banks books. There is so far no announcement planned, though Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has promised more details in the next couple of weeks.
