US Markets on Hold after Economic News

Today the market was digesting fabulous earnings, better housing numbers, a lower consumer confidence and lower Durable Goods Orders and a mixed bag Federal Reserve report. The market reacted with a small sell off, but what is behind the news and what shall individual investors focus on?
On the earnings front today:

Boeing Co. (BA) reported second-quarter earnings of $1.06 per share, topping forecasts for $1.01 per share, while its revenues for the quarter came in $15.57 billion, short of projections of $16.13 billion for the period. Hence, better earnings and slightly less sales, but overall healthy: Bullish sentiment.

Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) reported a wider second-quarter net loss compared to last year, showing a loss of $0.25 per share compared a loss of $0.13 per share last year. On average, analysts expected a loss of $0.20 per share for the quarter. The company also posted second-quarter revenues of $8.02 billion, which were just short of the $8.03 billion estimated on Wall Street. For Sprint it is hard to be a domestic number three with no clear point of differentiation, tmobile, vergin mobile, vergin atlantic and other providers right at their heels: No real sentiment indicator form this.

ConocoPhillips (COP) reported a surge in its second-quarter earnings to $2.77 per share, while its adjusted quarterly earnings came in at $1.67 per share. Analysts had forecast the firm to earn $1.56 per share for the quarter. ConocoPhillips also announced that it will sell 40 percent of its stake in Lukoil back to the firm for approximately $3.4 billion. The firm said its remaining 60 percent stake in Lukoil are depositary receipts and are expected to be sold in open market transactions or to Lukoil by the end of 2011.

Economic Indicators:

The Commerce Department said that orders for durable goods fell by 1.0 percent in June following a revised 0.8 percent decrease in May. The drop in orders came in line with economist estimates, while the decrease in orders in the previous month was revised from the 0.6 percent decline that had been reported. Excluding a 2.4 percent decrease in orders for transportation equipment, durable goods orders fell by a more modest 0.6 percent in June compared to a 1.2 percent increase in the previous month. The decrease came as a surprise to economists, who had expected ex-transportation orders to increase by 0.6 percent. By our means. Why to order transportation goods in a market with enough capacity are the orders for durable goods usually in the books of American companies. Working with the Automotive, Beverage-, Food-, Packaging- and other industries we seen a clear dominance in this sector by European, Japanese and Korean companies. When we trace back in time for a week, Germany reported a 27% increase in export – isn’t this base on US orders? Hence, we conclude that this is not really a market sentiment indicator.

This afternoon the Federal Reserve released its Beige Book report, an assessment of economic conditions in each of the 12 Federal Reserve districts and now we need to wait how big money decides to interpret the new economic publication. Let us have the facts prior to going to interpretation:

The Fed's latest beige book report of economic conditions showed improvement in most of its 12 regional districts, but with only modest advances in retail sales and weak numbers in housing and construction. Bank lending, meanwhile, was still tight. Let us summarize: We show an improved economy and solid corporate earnings. Surely based on high unemployment and tight lending: housing, construction and consumer spending comes tight. It is hard to do deficit spending if the banks and credit card companies do not allow.

Conclusion:

Based on higher profits more money will flow into the investment stream and stimulate other sectors. The recovery of the average consumer confidence will take: Corporations restructured, got more efficient and will not rehire the amount of people they worked with before. As a result we have an underlying bullish sentiment in a bear market and can expect steep up and down swings which will be wearing hard on the average investor who just holds Shares and Mutual Funds. To make money in the stock market people need to learn to trade the up and downside of the market, only hold shorter term positions. Futures, Options and Forex are the ideal investment instruments and NeverLossTrading.com is an ideal place to learn in 3 days how to apply them right to a better financial future. This counts for any account: 401(k), IRA, Personal, Margin, Custodian. Even if you might think that you are limited in your 401 (k) portfolio, NeverLossTrading will teach you that you are not and there are many ways to hedge and leverage your retirement account in the same way and manner as your personal accounts.