Weekend Reading: Oil Drag
By Paul Kedrosky RealMoney.com Contributor
05/11/08 04:31 PM EDT
Good Sunday and welcome to Weekend Reading. First, a look back at the week that just finished, then a look forward to the week ahead, and then a summary of some articles and papers worth reading.
It was the first down week in a month. After three weeks of gains, the major U.S. indices all fell last week. The Dow and the S&P 500 lost 2.4% and 1.8%, respectively, while the Nasdaq was down 1.3%.
The causes of this week's declines were many, but record-high gas prices helped. Weak real estate news assisted as well, as did mixed retail chain results.
Looking forward to next week, it will likely start off tepid. Late Friday FedEx
(FDX:Nasdaq)
guided down, blaming high oil prices and a weakening economy. It is hard to imagine that this continuing economic weakness, oil-related and housing-related, won't keep weighing heavily on the markets next week. About the only ray of light is an indication of a tiny crack on OPEC's united supply front, but that's much to build a
rally around.
Turning to economic indicators, next week is active. We will see import prices, retail sales for April, business inventories and the consumer price index. We will also end the week with a preliminary consumer sentiment reading for May.
As for earnings, Whole Foods Market
(WFMI:Nasdaq)
and Applied Materials
(AMAT:Nasdaq)
report Tuesday, followed by Autodesk
(ADSK:Nasdaq)
Thursday and British Airways
(BAIRY.PK:Nasdaq)
on Friday.
Finally, here are some articles and papers worth reading:
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Busting the non-cartel in semiconductors. (Bloomberg)
Ethanol is creating a food nightmare that the next president must deal with. (Bloomberg)
Barron's picks Supervalu
(SVU:Nasdaq)
, AIG
(AIG:Nasdaq)
and Dr. Pepper Snapple
(DPS:Nasdaq)
. (Barron's)
