每日市场点评 --- May 27, 2008

The market closed modestly higher following the Memorial Day holiday. The Nasdaq, which has outperformed the rest of the market recently, continued its trend and posted a gain of 1.50%. In contrast, neither the Dow nor the S&P 500 was able to fetch half of that amount. The volume was on the light side as some traders were not back from vacation yet. The news on the economic front was mixed. New-home sales in April unexpected rose 3.3% to an annual rate of 526K from a revised 509K rate in the prior month. Economists expected a drop to 520K. The median sales price for new homes increased 1.5% compared to a year ago although this figure might be skewed by changes in the mix of sales. In a separate report, the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 14.4% from a year ago, making it the worst slump since the index was first published in 2001. Consumers, confronting record high gasoline price and unprecedented drop in housing price, were clearly not in good mood these days. The Conference Board’s confidence index declined more than expected to 57.2 and a gauge of expectations for the next six months declined to 45.7 from 50.0 the prior month. On the other hand, the projected inflation rate a year from now soared to a record 7.7%.

Transportations and technologies were the biggest beneficiaries of a $4 drop in crude oil. Not surprisingly, commodities especially energies were among the few losers for the session. The CRB commodity index gave back 1.4% led by energies and precious metals. The latter was also partly impacted by strengths seen in the US dollar. Treasuries lost ground with yields rising across the curve as some traders pared their flight-to-quality trades from the previous week. The VIX index, which is usually used as a fear indicator, moved little in today’s trading.