Weekly S and P Report Comments

by Sean Lusk, PFGBEST

1-877-294-7757

slusk@PFGBEST.com

Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 3:21 PM

E Mini S&P settles 1308.00 down 1.00

Stock futures suffered a slight decline on Tuesday after weaker than expected economic data led traders to book profits after early morning optimism from the EU. The mini Dow futures contract lost just 25 points for the day, as heavy selling after a report on U.S. consumer confidence in January halted a rally of just over 80 points in morning trading. The mini S&P 500 finished lower by a point, as it couldn’t hold onto morning gains that saw end of the month profit taking prompted by weak economic data.  Stock futures got a boost from Europe, after leaders of 25 of the 27 EU governments agreed on a pact to move closer to fiscal union and signed off on a permanent bailout fund for the 17 nation euro zone. Talks between Greece and its private creditors were said to have made continuing progress. However the market went negative and pretty much stayed that way throughout the day as economic data missed projections. The January reading of Consumer Confidence was well short of expectations, it fell 3.7 points from the month prior to 61.1, but was forecast to increase to 68.0. U.S. home prices also fell again in November, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Schiller home price indexes. The Case Schiller index of 10 major metro areas and the 20 city index both fell 1.3% from October. Despite today’s small losses the Dow climbed 3.4 percent this month, while the S&P 500 is up 4.4 percent. These gains marked the best January performance since 1997. Plenty of economic data out tomorrow headlined by the ISM manufacturing index and private forecasts on jobs from ADP and Challenger. Please call me with any questions or comments.

Daily Swing #s ESH2

R2-1324.50

R1-1316.25

Pivot-1309.25

S1-1301.00

S2-1294.00

Daily Swing #s YMH2

R2-12762

R1-12669

Pivot-12590

S1-12497

S2-12418

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