YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Weekly Recap - Week ending 26-Jun-09

The stock market had some swings this week, but eventually settled essentially unchanged as early losses were offset by gains later in the week. Trading was highlighted by corporate news from some widely-held names, economic data and the FOMC policy announcement.

Stocks got off to a rough start, with the S&P 500 falling 3.1% on Monday.  Although there was no particular catalyst for the sell off, the World Bank cutting GDP forecasts on the U.S. and other major economies did not help sentiment.

But the S&P 500 managed to regain ground, with most of the advance coming on Thursday.  In the end, the stock market fell 0.3%, with the telecom (+3.7%) and healthcare (+1.4%) sectors outperforming.  The energy (-2.3%) and financial (-1.1%) sectors were the main laggards.

Although only a handful of companies reported earnings, there were several big names announcing, which kept corporate news in focus.

Walgreen (WAG) tumbled after missing its consensus estimate on lower margins, sending the stock down 5.2% for week.  Oracle (ORCL) topped estimates and issued upside guidance, settling with a weekly gain of 2.8%.

Nike (NKE) shares fell 10.3% for the week.  Although the company beat expectations for its latest quarter, investors were disappointed that future orders fell 12% year-over-year.

In other corporate news, Boeing (BA) pushed back the first flight date of its long anticipated and much delayed 787 Dreamliner.  Shares fell 13.5%..

In economic news, new home sales data showed an annualized rate of 342,000 units, below the 360,000 unit consensus. Given the revisions to the prior month, new home sales were down 0.6% month-over-month versus an expected increase of 2.3%.

Meanwhile, existing home sales increased 2.4% from April to an annualized rate of 4.77 million units. According to the National Association of Realtors.  Despite the gain, the reading was slightly below the consensus estimate of 4.82 million.

Initial jobless claims for the week ended June 13 totaled 627,000, which was worse than expected and up from the previous week. Continuing claims crept up to 6.74 million. Though that is still off of its record high, it was worse-than-expected.

The final reading for first quarter GDP showed a 5.5% annualized decline, which is a slight improvement from the 5.7% annualized decline that was previously reported. The revision came from a smaller decline in inventories than previously reported, but personal consumption expenditures were revised downward to show a 1.4% increase.

The FOMC left the benchmark rates unchanged (fed funds at range of 0.00% and 0.25%), noting that there is a slowdown in the economic contraction. But the committee also stated that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period of time

Bond markets saw plenty of action during the week.  A $27 billion auction of 7-year Notes had better-than-expected demand. The auction drew a yield of 3.33% and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.82. Buying at the long-end of the yield curve pushed the benchmark 10-year note yield down to 3.55% from 3.79%.

Index	Started Week	Ended Week	Change	% Change	YTD %
DJIA	8539.73	8438.39	-101.34	-1.2	-3.9
Nasdaq	1827.47	1838.22	10.75	0.6	16.6
S&P 500	921.23	918.90	-2.33	-0.3	1.7
Russell 2000	512.72	513.22	0.50	0.1	2.8