On the one-year anniversary of Lehman’s demise, the stock market surprised traders once more with the resilience of its six-month-old rally.

After a lower start, stocks reversed course and finished Monday with slight gains even though reports of a trade spat between the U.S. and China clearly rattled investors. Stocks had started the day lower as a trade dispute between the US and China rattled the market. The rift started on Friday, when President Obama announced tariffs against tires from China, which followed up Monday by asking the World Trade Organization to intervene. The tariffs came on the heels of a union complaint that a surge of imports of the Chinese tires were taking away American jobs.

Today, focus in the UK will be on the Consumer Price Index and Retail Price Index data out shortly. In Europe, attention will be drawn to the ZEW survey data on economic sentiment. From the U.S today, the one to watch is August retail sales, which economists expect to be up 1.9%, driven mostly by auto sales related to the “cash for clunkers” program.

The UK market and the European markets have opened up flat today. U.S futures markets are pointing to a flat start when their markets resume trading this afternoon. Futures currently forecast the Dow to open down circa 1 point.

Sources: Reuters: BBC: Bloomberg: Lawshare: Deutsche Bank (db): Proquote: Financial Times: Wall Street Journal: CLSA: Sharescope: Market News. Capital Economics: CNBC: Wikipedia: GaveKal:

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