The weekend’s worries that the Fed may be planning the end or slowdown of QE3 translated into a lackluster market performance with little movement in any of the major indices.

The market enthusiasm generated by the positive employment report on Friday carried over to today.  The rally in Technology stocks continued from last week, but Financials did even better.  With the Nikkei and FTSE both closed, the off-shore action ended slightly more positive than negative.  We had no domestic reports today in what will be a quiet week of economic news with only Thursday’s Initial Jobless Claims and Wholesale Inventories Reports, followi

It was a pleasant opening today for the market with positive results and market activity from Europe, as well as generally positive domestic economic reports this morning.  In particular, pending home sales were up 1.5% versus an expected 0.1% and last month’s -1.0%.  Personal spending was a little better-than-expected while personal income was but a tad less-than-expected and lower than last month.  The week will be fairly full as companies continue to r

Today’s market opened up a tad on positive action from Asian and European markets; however, the pangs of last week’s painful performance took hold and the S&P 500 fell as much as 0.7%.  Earnings and revenues for Caterpillar (CAT) were below estimates causing investors to recall flat to poor results from General Electric (GE), International Business Machines (IBM) and McDonalds (MCD) on Friday.  Then, shortly into today’s session, Existing Home Sales o

Editor’s note:  Overshadowing the turbulent market today were the two explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Our hearts go out to those injured, and the families of those killed.

China reported GDP at 7.7% year-over-year for the first quarter versus an expected 8%— and the markets toppled.  All Asian markets had a bad day; all European markets had a bad day; and all domestic markets opened sharply down.  Gold fell over 8% already.

How’s that for a Monday eye-opener?

This week began on the same negative tone that last week ended on. There were no economic reports today, but an unexpected European problem surfaced as the Constitutional Court in Portugal ruled out a number of austerity measures that the Portuguese administration had implemented, pursuant to the requirements of the ECC, IMF and EC.  This creates a dilemma for both Portugal and the troika. 

With European markets closed for Easter on Monday and Asia soured by poor economic reports from both China and Japan, it was up to the domestic ISM report and the Construction Spending reports to give the market a boost.

The week started out well as insured depositors were spared in Cyprus, and that resonated well with investors.  Furthermore, last week’s domestic economic data was quite positive especially for housing.  The Philadelphia Fed Survey was much better than expected; Initial Jobless Claims remained in the low 300K area; and LEI were as expected.

This week began on a very ugly note after the IMF, ECB, and EC revealed over the weekend they are requiring Cyprus to levy a tax on its depositors. This, they felt, was needed to raise approximately one half of bailout funds needed by the government to, among other things, shore-up its banks after taking “big hits” to their capital structure from the disastrous fall in Greek bonds held by the Cypriot banks.

After a bullish performance last week, the market began the day a little off but managed to fight its way into increases across the major indices with S&P 500 closing at 1556, just 9 points shy of its record closing high in 2007.