Economics Update

Philly Fed Coincident Index(red is bad)

The Philadelphia Bank of the Federal Reserve has released its "state coincident indicators", and 49 of 50 states showed contraction during the past quarter.

And another day, another S&P downgrades of residential mortgage backed securities. They review 101, and downgraded 93 of them.

Meanwhile, May existing home roes, but the year over number is still down, and median home prices have declined 16.7% year over year, so there is no incication that prices are falling.

Distressed home sales, foreclosures, short sales, etc., declined to only 33% (!) of sales from 45% (!!!) in April, so we are still well in vulture territory.

There looks to be downward pressure on interest rates, as treasurys have risen, pushing the yield down.

Not much in the way of "green shoots" in Europe, with both consumer spending in France and the a purchasing managers' index in Germany falling.

Of course everyone is holding their breath about what the Federal Open Market Committee will do tomorrow, though the consensus is that they will not raise rates, which pushed the dollar lower.

The falling dollar, and unrest in Nigeria, drove oil up today/a>, it finished the session at just below $70/bbl.