{"id":5849,"date":"2012-08-01T07:40:41","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T12:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5849"},"modified":"2012-08-01T07:40:41","modified_gmt":"2012-08-01T12:40:41","slug":"before-the-open-aug-1-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5849","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Aug 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Wednesday. Happy Fed Day.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed. China and Singapore moved up; Japan moved down. Europe is currently mixed with perhaps a downward bias. Austria is down 1.2%; London and France are up. Futures here in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is flat. Oil is up, copper down. Gold and silver are down.<\/span>
\nThe FOMC makes their announcement at 2:15 est today. No one expects them to change rates, but there is a growing consensus they’ll committ to keeping rates low until 2015. This, in my opinion, is the theft of the century…300+ million people earning no interest for so many years. Anyone who has savings is getting screwed…all so the banks can recapitalize their balance sheets. Of course if rates were moved up, the stock market would get clobbered. Not because higher rates would be such a drag but because fixed income would become attractive again. Heck, it’s attractive now (see bond yields). If rates were moved up, there would be a huge flow of money from the stock market to the bond market, and stocks would get pummeled. At this point in time, this is probably the main reason the Fed can’t raise rates.<\/span>
\nWall St. will also be reading the Fed’s statement very closely for hints or outright statements of QE3. A week ago I would have said ‘maybe’, but not now. Economic numbers have improved recently, and the Dow and S&P are only one day removed from a higher high. The Fed is not going to do QE3 unless they absolutely have to, and right now, they don’t.<\/span>
\nThe Bank of London and European Central Bank also announce interest rate policy soon, and then we get the latest employment numbers on Friday. It’s been a slow week so far, but this is about to change. Stay tuned. More after the open.<\/span>
\nheadlines at Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/span>
\nheadlines at MarketWatch<\/a><\/span>
\ntoday’s upgrades\/downgrades<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Earnings<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Economic Numbers<\/a><\/span>
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