Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• US Small Business pinched by lack of credit, confidence – Bloomberg
• Wall St’s largest bond dealers have been cutting their holdings of corp debt to the lowest levels
since Sept – Bloomberg
• Airlines’ fees may be taxed – House Dems on Wed criticized airlines for rolling out increasing
amounts of new fees; they are threatening to roll out fresh taxes on those fees – WSJ
• Polls signal increased discontent w/WH ‐ A majority or plurality disapproves of Obama’s
management of the economy, health care, the budget deficit, the overhaul of financial market
regulations and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted July
9‐ 12. In addition, almost 6 in 10 respondents say the war in Afghanistan is a lost cause. Almost two‐
thirds say they feel the nation is headed in the wrong direction – Bloomberg
• Whether they've ever been deployed to a foreign war, active duty military personnel in the U.S.
have similarly high levels of wellbeing, well above that of U.S. workers in general. Wellbeing scores
decline somewhat for previously deployed personnel under the age of 30, however. ‐ Gallup – For some
reason, this is fascinating and brings the Hurt Locker to mind.
• FOMC minutes (out Wed @ 2pmET) – JPMorgan’s Feroli takeaways: The FOMC greeted the
European crisis and the ensuing soft patch of data with repose, modestly marking down their 2010
growth forecast but maintaining the same qualitative outlook for "continued, moderate recovery." The
committee went on to judge that the minor forecast changes were "not warranting policy
accommodation beyond that already in place." Nonetheless, the increased sense of downside risk led
the committee to conclude that in addition to planning for an exit strategy, some contingency planning
for more stimulus would also be prudent, just in case. Even though the FOMC remained quite
comfortable with the 2010 growth projection‐‐much more so than the market‐‐a case can be made that
these minutes were actually somewhat dovish. Nobody seriously believes that 2010 will be the arena for
policy normalization. But in 2011 and 2012, when it is more plausible that the Fed could begin to move,
the committee now sees both employment and inflation being further away from the dual mandate
objectives than they did in April.
• National Incident Commander Thad Allen announces that BP will begin the "integrity test" on the
new cap over the gushing Gulf of Mexico oil well. The test will close down the flow of the well in a series
of steps as officials closely monitor rising pressure in the well. – Washington Post
• We will get a slowdown in the economy. But it is a mistake to attribute all of this to reduced final
demand as much of the slowdown will be due to lower contributions from inventory adjustments. A
quick and dirty measure of this is a simple ratio of inventories to New Orders. After record lows in
December 2008, the ratio is quite close to its 20 year average of 9.43 (blue)…indicating the benefit from
inventory restocking is closer to its completion than its commencement.
• Steinbrenner presided over 15,900% Franchise Appreciation – Bloomberg