Stock Market update: Stock Market Blog -Jul 17th

GOOG stock rallied by $70 on Friday after reporting great earnings! The market however was down for the week. Uncertainty about the debt ceiling, European financial difficulties, the end of the Fed's QE2 program, and a lack of jobs continue to weigh on the market. The Financial sector led the way down this week.

New all time highs: AAPL, CLX, GLD, IAU, FOSL, JAZZ
Gold hit an all time high again!

New unemployment claims dropped to 405,000 (chart).
This week, four more banks were shut down by the FDIC! (list).

Next week: (Economic reports link).

Earnings reports continue to come in next week:
Mon -IBM
Tue -GS, KO, BAC, WFC, JNJ, AAPL, CMG, ISRG, VMW, YHOO
Wed -BIDU, MO, UTX, AXP, INTC
Thu -T,F, AMD, FCX, MSFT, DECK
Fri -CAT, GE, MCD, VZ

Market commentary: We lost some ground last week as the Fed didn't light any more fires under the economy. The market will primarily be driven by the slew of earnings releases due next week, with lots of anxiety about AAPL, especially after the blowout numbers we got from GOOG this week. AAPL could go either way in my opinion -they have some challenges ahead of them; remember it's not about whether they report great numbers, but rather how the market reacts to those numbers.

The overall market has been in a trendless, trading range since February, the most difficult type of market to trade. On the optimistic side, we could be forming an ABC pattern from the low in late June, with the next leg being bullish after this recent pullback.