Money Watch Year In Review
The book is closed on 2010 and as the Grateful Dead would say, "What a long, strange trip it's been..."
Highlights include:
Economy
- Jobs/high unemployment rate
- Housing/Foreclosure-gate
- Recovery vs. "Double Dip"
- Year of Ben (Bernanke): Quantitative Easing
- Deficit/Austerity
- Tax Cut Deal
- The Good: GM
- The Bad: BP
- The Ugly: Goldman Sachs
- Financial Regulatory Reform/CARD Act
- European Debt Crisis (PIIGS)
- Flash Crash (5/6: erased $862 billion of value in 20 minutes)
DJIA 11,577: +11.02% in 2010
- Dec: +5.19%
- Q4: +7.32%
- 2009-2010: +31.92%
- +7.33% over past decade
- Dec: +6.53% - best December since 1991
- Q4: +10.2%
- 2009-2010: +39.23% (biggest two-year advance since 1998 and 1999)
- +86% since March 2009 lows: biggest rally for a comparable period since 1955 (source: Bloomberg/S&P)
- Dec: +6.19%
- Q4: +12.00%
- 2009-2010: +68.22%
- Dec: +8.64%
- Q4: +14.27%
- 2009-2010: +104.89% the past two years
- Dec: +2.61%
- Q4: +8.66%
- Up 10 consecutive years for total 422.46%
- Dec: +6.72%
- Q4: +6.33%
- Dec: +5.34%
- Q4: +6.20%
- 2009-2010: +40.08%
- High yield = 4.017% in April
- Low yield: 2.332% in October
- A year ago, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 3.837%
IN THE WEEK AHEAD: The New Year will kick off with a full economic calendar, highlighted by the December employment report, which will be released on Friday. It's expected that 140K new jobs were created last month, which would be welcome after last month's disappointing 39K. Other reports include the ISM manufacturing and service indexes and vehicle sales.
Mon 1/3:
- 10:00 ISM Manufacturing Index - should increase to 57.2 from 56.6
- 10:00 Construction Spending
- December vehicle sales: Edmunds forecasts 12.34M, which would be highest sales rate since 9/08 (excluding cash-for-clunkers 8/09)
- 2:00 FOMC Minutes from Dec 14 meeting
- 7:00 MBA mortgage purchase applications index
- 8:15 ADP Employment Report: Consensus = +100K
- 10:00 ISM non-Manufacturing Index
- 8:30 Weekly Claims
Fri 1/7:
- 8:30 Dec Jobs Report: Consensus = +140K (+39K in Nov), Rate=9.7% from 9.8%
- 9:30 Bernanke testifies before Senate Committee on the Budget
- 3:00 Consumer Credit
