Market Update – 2:14pm

· Market Update – another quiet session w/o a lot of major noticeable trends.  The China yuan action from Sat morning continues to receive a ton of media attention, but investors have largely moved on and the yuan trading patterns over the last two sessions signal that PBOC officials are only going to countenance a very slow and steady advance over a long period of time in its currency.  The critical reference point remains last Tues 6/15 when the sp500 jumped more than 2% and broke north of its 200day MA (finally) – since then, we have been in digestion mode.  That 200day continues to dominate the tape and we have been hugging it for the last few sessions.  While there are a few items that could impact the tape this wk (FOMC, ORCL/RIMM earnings, etc), the market’s focus really remains on the upcoming earnings season (which AA kicks off on Jul 12) and the jobs report on Jul 2.  On the desk, the trend remains as it has been recently – large sell pressure has dried up but buyers are reluctant to chase on the upside.  In terms of fundamentals, thinks are pretty quiet.  Existing home sales came in below expectations, the latest in a string of neg. housing data points, and the builders are off ~1% as a result (housing data points have been neg. for some time and the SP builder index is down 14% just in the month of June, the weakest performing sector by far).  There were a few earnings, but nothing that has much significance beyond its immediate peer group (WAG and CCL fall post results while JEF rallies).