Thursday, September 03, 2009

Evening Briefing for September 3rd

* MARKET THEMES FROM THURSDAY: Stocks could not sustain early strength and the ES futures fell to multiday lows in morning trade. There were numerous sector non-confirmations of those lows, as noted in the intraday Twitter posts, and we ultimately traded higher into the close. That put us near the top of the multiday trading range going into Friday's unemployment numbers. Gold continued its march higher; oil was range bound; and the dollar traded weaker vs. the Aussie dollar, off its lows vs. euro. Yields on ten-year Treasuries started the day higher, but fell back during the day. Given the strength we saw in China in early trade, today's follow through in the U.S. was tepid at best. Nice market wrap here.

* OVERSEAS/OVERNIGHT NUMBERS: 3:00 AM CT - Italy, trade balances; 6:00 AM CT - Canada, unemployment. Earnings reports due Friday here.

* WORTH READING:

-- Adjusted mutual fund cash levels actually quite low; interesting research;

-- A savvy money manager is predicting big job losses for Friday's release;

-- Brazil protecting its oil industry;

-- Rental units on the rise, as homeowners become landlords;

-- Perspective on what it takes to develop a popular financial blog;

-- Gold on the rise;

-- Still seeing higher highs and higher lows.
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