July 10th, 2013

The biggest news story of the day would have to do with remarks by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke at the end of the FOMC meeting today.  Around 2:30 was the time of the announcement, and as you can see in the below intra-day DOW chart, the market dropped almost immediately.

Other minor "news" today included reports that the Federal government is taking a bigger and more active role in cracking down on insider trading.

Additionally, a report came out that (compared to other currencies on an international/global scale) the US dollar is loosing the "race to the bottom."  Basically, a weak US dollar actually is a good thing because it means goods manufactured in the US are cheaper for other countries to buy, so other countries are more likely to buy goods we export.  A strong US dollar means we are more likely to purchase goods from abroad rather than domestically.  So essentially the report indicates that the dollar is strengthening, which means a likely increase in purchasing imports and a decrease in how many exported goods are purchased from our country.

On the whole the markets finished flat today.  The DOW ended the day down $8.68 or -0.06%.  The S&P 500 finished -$0.30/-0.02%.  The NASDAQ finished up $16.50 or +0.47%.