Stock Market Blog -Jul 18th

The market was up for the week until the big sell off on Friday! (see chart below). Bad news on consumer sentiment, and earnings reports from GOOG, and GE, BAC, JPM, and C, all helped to push the DOW down 261 points on Friday (also Options expiration day). The Fed also chimed in with a lowered outlook on the economy.

INTC reported great earnings on Tuesday, but the shares sold off.
GOOG shares were down $34 after reporting earnings.

The National debt just crossed another $250 billion! (now $13.25 trillion)



New unemployment claims fell, coming in at 429,000 (chart).
This week, six banks were shutdown by the FDIC! (list).

Next week: We get the usual Economic reports, along with a barrage of earnings reports. Some of the companies reporting:

MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI
IBM	GS	KO	MMM,T,CAT	F
TXN	JNJ,BSX	EMC	AXP	MCD
HAL	AAPL	FCX	NOK
	YHOO	MS,WFC	AMZN
	JNPR	SBUX	MSFT
	VMW	BIDU	UPS
		EBAY,QCOM
		ISRG

Market commentary: The market will be driven by 'earnings' this week. It could move in either direction, but the charts may be indicating a 'top' here, in a downward channel. It may also be consolidating between 9750 and 10500 in the DOW.

Commodities (charts):
Oil prices were mostly unchanged, closing near $76 per barrel.
Natural Gas was up, closing around $4.50.
Gold was down, closing around $1188.
The US Dollar index continued to drop, closing around 82.66
The 30 year Bond rallied! -closed just over $128.

News:
US Stocks Battered; Financials Lead The Fall; DJIA Off 220
U.S. Consumer Price Index falls 0.1% in June
Google Earnings Miss Wall Street Expectations, Shares Fall
Goldman pays $550 mln to settle CDO suit with SEC
Senate OKs sweeping bank-reform bill; sends it to Obama
The Debt Supercycle

Chinese bank to launch world’s biggest stock offering
Should you buy energy stocks?
Motorola Droid X Sold Out