Weekend Reading: Relief Spell

Good Sunday morning. As always, here are some articles and papers worth reading. First, however, a look back at the week that just finished, and a look forward to the week ahead.

After feeling recently like the end is nigh, investors can be forgiven if they thought this past week was a kind of relief. It wasn't much relief, however, because two of the three major markets still lost ground. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq ended the week down 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively, while the Dow gained 1.1%. Click here for the weekly performance.

Let's put all the recent action in perspective. For the year, the Dow is up 2.8%, and the S&P 500 is up 0.3%. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq is down 3.4%. The general sense out there seems to be that the indices will make at least a little upward progress for a spell, at least until Fed Chairman Bernanke gets in front of a microphone again. (The best Bernanke headline last week came from The Wall Street Journal: "Bernanke Speaks. No-one Dies.")

Turning to the economic week ahead, May U.S. housing starts and building permits are due out Tuesday. Weekly jobless claims and the May index of leading economic indicators are scheduled for Thursday. And on Friday, we'll see May data on U.S. durable goods orders.

Next week will be fairly quiet on the earnings front, but not silent. Big companies reporting include Circuit City (CC Quote), Oracle (ORCL Quote), FedEx (FDX Quote) and Morgan Stanley (MS Quote). Also, there are some signs that earnings warnings may increase in coming quarters.

Finally, here are some articles and papers worth reading:

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• Wall Streeters aren't particularly soccer-obsessed. (Reuters)
• S&P 500 corrections and recoveries during bull markets since 1970. (Standard & Poor's)
• Individual investors are losing oodles in commodities and gold. (Reuters)
• The most overheated U.S. housing market tooks its largest price dive ever in May. (NBC)
• U.S. retail sales are slowing and will slow further. (BCA Research)
• Oil markets will be tight, and prices will remain high for the next two years. (Oil & Gas Journal)
• Major brokers are investing heavily in online casinos. (Investment Dealers' Digest)
• Inflation expectations don't matter as much as they used to. (Bloomberg columnist Caroline Baum)
• Barron's picks Capital One, pans Learning Tree, and worries more about click fraud at Google and Yahoo! (Barron's)
• Enron's Jeffrey Skilling contemplated suicide, ate earthworms. (Los Angeles Times/The Wall Street Journal)
• Ask is to Google as Apple is to Microsoft. (The Economist)
• How Dell is struggling to right itself after recent missteps. (The New York Times)
• The rise of long-only hedge funds. (Isn't that an oxymoron?) (Dailyii.com)
• Research: Which credit ratings announcements matter most? (BIS)
• Research: Market timing in regression and reality. (Fisher and Statman)

1 What would best describe your stance heading into the coming week of trading? Bullish Bearish Neutral 2 Which of these sectors do you think is set to move up in the coming week? --Choose One--Aerospace and DefenseAirlinesAutomobilesBeverages and Food ProductsBiotechnologyCommercial BanksComputers and PeripheralsConsumer NondurablesEnergy Equipment & ServicesHMOs and HospitalsHomebuildingInsuranceIntegrated OilInternet, Software ServicesInvestment Bankers and BrokersMediaMultiline RetailPharmaceuticalsPrecious MetalsSemis, Semi EquipmentTelecom EquipmentTobacco and AlcoholWireless CommunicationsUtilities 3 Which of these sectors do you think is set to move down in the coming week? --Choose One--Aerospace and DefenseAirlinesAutomobilesBeverages and Food ProductsBiotechnologyCommercial BanksComputers and PeripheralsConsumer NondurablesEnergy Equipment & ServicesHMOs and HospitalsHomebuildingInsuranceIntegrated OilInternet, Software ServicesInvestment Bankers and BrokersMediaMultiline RetailPharmaceuticalsPrecious MetalsSemis, Semi EquipmentTelecom EquipmentTobacco and AlcoholWireless CommunicationsUtilities View the results without voting