Market Recap

A good day for the bulls . The Dow and Nasdaq finished up while the S&P was marginally lower. Overall though the bulls came out on top as attempts to take down the market were thwarted. Transports and oils were the leading sectors while banking as expected lagged with big names like GS BAC C JPM MER BSC UBS CFC all closing down.

Big drop in natural gas prices as hurricane Dean moves away from oil and gas producing areas of the Gulf of Mexico. I continue to add UNG here since we are still in hurricane season and all it takes is one big storm to send Natural gas 20-30% higher. The odds favor atleast one spike.

The credit crunch has forced Treasury Bill yields down the most in two decades as investors scramble to safer grounds.

Will Countrywide survive this mortgage crisis ? Thats seems to be the question on a lot of investors minds as CFC has lost two thirds of its value in the last few months. I believe CFC will survive and buying below $20 is a great bargain. Capital One in the meantime is shutting down its mortgage unit Greenpoint.

The Conference Board index of leading economic indicators rose in July and suggests continued economic growth again. This remains to be seen. I take all indicators with a grain of salt.

It appears a lot of investors feel we saw the bottom on Thursday. If this was indeed the bottom, I expect some sort of retest over the next few weeks. I would be cautious about adding to long positions here and probably start building up some hedges just in case another leg down starts. While the economy appears to be fine especially when global growth is taken into account, investors seem to be very jittery and any rumor or actual negative event could take this market down in a hurry.