The Market On Tuesday

Good morning. It is 69 degrees, slightly breezy, and hazy cloudy here in Upstate NY. The weather logo is indicating rain for later on. Out doing my morning walk a short time ago I bumped into a few neighbors. The talk is all about last night's severe thunderstorms, and yes they were severe. The house was literally shaking from the thunder booms, quite amazing. Still I managed to fall asleep however the new dog did not, at least right away that is. She is very sensitive to sounds and gets jumpy when something out of the ordinary makes noise, could even be a sudden car door slamming. Anyhow as the booms struck the poor dog laid on the bathroom floor, was curled up head down, and she was shaking from nervousness. So we tried to soothe her and I'm happy to say that this morning she was in great wagging spirits. Some dogs get freaked out in thunderstorms, others don't even notice.

At 8:15 a.m. futures are flat, the dollar is mostly up against major world currencies, and the price of oil is up per barrel. The market is poised to open in the flat to slightly higher range. One suspects energy stocks might do a little better.

Investors are pleased to see data out of China indicating that the manufacturing behemoth is holding it's own - manufacturing did not contract in China last month. This is investor good news. On the other hand, top tier economic power Germany is facing a challenge to it pristine credit rating from Moody's. So we have dramatic good and bad news which appears to be equaling out to a flat opening. After the opening, who knows. Investors are still parsing through second quarter data and that could push the indexes.

CNN: Stocks: China lessens the gloom

The HSBC China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index...came out at 49.5 in July...it is the highest number reported since February and shows significant improvement.


...recent (Chinese) policy stimulus is working...


...rating agency Moody's cut the outlook on Germany's prized Aaa credit rating from "stable" to "negative"...


The Federal Housing Finance Agency will release its Housing Price Index for May at 10 a.m. ET.