Weekly Recap - Week ending 19-Jun-09Investors took profits this week following an aggressive three-month rebound, with the stock market selling off on Monday and Tuesday before mixed trade finished out the week -- S&P 500 -2.6%, Dow -2.9%, Nasdaq Comp -1.7%, Russell 2000 -2.7%.

Market participants now believe that things are less bad than before with the economy and earnings prospects, but the lack of action suggests investors are waiting for headlines to drive the market. Lackluster volume can be partially explained by the typical summer lull, but participants are also awaiting further data that confirms signs of an economic recovery, second quarter earnings season, legislation on regulatory reform for the Financial sector and reform proposals for the Health Care sector, among other items.

Nine of the 10 S&P sectors finished in the red this week, led by Energy (-6.5%), Materials (-6.4%) and Industrials (-5.6%). Health Care (+2.1%) was the only one in the black as that volatile sector seems to move on every reform headline.

As mentioned above, the stock market made its largest move on Monday, with the S&P declining 2.4%. The negative disposition was attributed to reports that G-8 ministers discussed over the weekend how they should prepare to unwind stimulus spending as the economic recovery begins to take root. The commodities market and material stocks were also under pressure following a surge in the dollar after Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin reassured investors of Russia's confidence in the U.S. currency and the BRIC nations said they do not intend to discuss new global reserve currencies at their first summit.

Stocks attempted to rebound on Tuesday, but ended up extending Monday's declines. Industrial Production came in at -1.1% for May (consensus -1.0%), while the prior month was revised lower to -0.7% from -0.5%. That more than offset better-then-expected housing data, as Housing Starts came in at 532,000 in May (consensus 485,000) and Building Permits came in at 518,000 for the month (consensus 508,000).

The stock market actually continued its sell-off on Wednesday morning, as FedEx (FDX) issued disappointing fiscal Q1 (August) guidance and ratings agency Standard & Poor's lowered its ratings and revised its outlooks on 22 banks. But stocks were able to recover from their lows, finishing the session with mixed results.

Thursday and Friday produced more of the same. Volume was extremely low yesterday, with the NYSE hardly trading 1 billion shares. While it doubled today, trading over 2 billion shares, that was due to quarterly options expiration.

Looking ahead to next week, there are a few notable earnings releases, including Walgreen (WAG) on Monday (6/22), Oracle (ORCL) on Tuesday (6/23) and Monsanto (MON) on Wednesday (6/24). There will also be some important economic releases, including Existing Home Sales on Tuesday, Durable Goods Orders on Wednesday and the Final reading for Q1 GDP on Thursday (6/25). However, market participants will still be awaiting resolutions for those items mentioned above, which could impact (further lull) trading.

Index	Started Week	Ended Week	Change	% Change	YTD %
DJIA	8799.26	8539.73	-259.53	-2.9	-2.7
Nasdaq	1858.80	1827.47	-31.33	-1.7	15.9
S&P 500	946.21	921.23	-24.98	-2.6	2.0
Russell 2000	526.83	512.72	-14.11	-2.7	2.7