Tuesday Market Preview
U.S. stock futures are trading a bit higher this morning after yesterday's disappointing day. After the best weekly performance in four months, stocks couldn't keep the momentum going, despite positive comments from a Fed official.
Some analysts thought the reversal was attributable to Moody's downgrading of Greece's credit rating to junk status. Huh? Pretty much everyone in the world seems to understand that Greece is one big, fat junk bond, so Moody's ridiculously late announcement appears to be yet another reason that ratings companies should be put to their death.
The official reconciliation process between Senate and House for financial regulatory reform will kick off today. Here's a great chart that puts both bills side by side and here's a quick regulatory reform cheat sheet.
Areas to watch include: Blanche Lincoln's derivatives trading rules (which some have suggested are behind recent market tumble), the Volcker Rule, which would force banks to separate their risky ventures from the more vanilla ones; and of course, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, an in independent agency that oversees companies that offer financial products or services that have a "material impact on a consumer."
Jill Schlesinger is the Editor-at-Large for CBS MoneyWatch.com. Prior to the launch of MoneyWatch, she was the Chief Investment Officer for an independent investment advisory firm. In her infancy, she was an options trader on the Commodities Exchange of New York.
