Economy
-Residential construction fell 1.1% in February, but application for housing permits reached their highest level since 2008. 3/21
-Mortgage rates have risen with the recent uptick in Treasury rates. The 30 year fixed mortgage rate has jumped to 4.07% from 3.85% in the past 10 days. 3/22
-A gauge of Chinese manufacturing fell to a four month low in March and was the 5th straight month of contraction. 3/22
-Existing home sales fell 0.9% in February, and the inventory of homes listed for sale increased. 3/22
-Global manufacturing continues to expand in March, but fell from the level of February. 3/23
-Jobless claims continued their decent and reached a 4 year low, however the 4 week moving average remained flat as its been for the past month. 3/23
-Euro-zone business activity weakened further in March contradicting recent statements that euro zone is on path to recovery. 3/23
-New home sales fell for the second straight month. 3/24
Corporate
-Amazon is purchasing Kiva, a maker of robots used in shipping, for $775 million to continue to grow their business. 3/20
-Disney expects to lose $200 million on the movie John Carter. 3/20
-Apple announced it would issue a dividend and buy back $10 billion worth of shares to return to investors a portion of the $100 billion stock pile of cash the firm holds. Apple had not paid a dividend since 1995. 3/20
-Oracle’s fiscal first quarter profit gained 18% driven by software sales which compensated for weakness in its hardware business. 3/21
-Apple said it sold 3 million of its newly released iPad tablet computers over the weekend. 3/21
-Fedex’s fiscal third quarter saw earnings double, however it lowered its global growth forecast to 2.3% and will scale back its staff accordingly. It also gave earnings guidance that fell below analyst estimates. 3/23
-B of A is launching a new program that will let some home owners at risk of foreclosure remain in their homes and rent the dwelling from the bank at market rates. 3/23
-KB Homes earnings disappointed as it posted a loss and it reported expectations for weak orders for future homes. 3/24
-The shares of computerized trading firm BATS Global Markets plunged after a few seconds being listed to fractions of a cent due to a software glitch on its own trading platform. It led the firm to pull its IPO, and called into question the functionality of the trading platform. 3/24
Regulatory
-Owners of the NY Mets have reached a settlement with the court appointed trustee for investor Bernie Madoff’s firm for $162 million. 3/20
-Brazil announced it would not allow executives of Chevron and Transocean to leave the country and will be bringing criminal charges stemming from an oil spill in November. 3/20
Market
-Oil prices fell 2.3% to $105.61 a barrel after comments by Saudi officials that they will attempt to lower prices. 3/21
-US markets saw their worst weekly performance of the year as investors exhibited concern over slower growth in China. The Dow fell 1.1% and the S&P dropped 0.5% for the week. International markets were down as well as Japan fell 1.2% and Europe was off 2.5%. The 10 year treasury yield finished the week at 2.237%. 3/24