The markets opened slightly down this morning and then traded higher and looked like we might post small gains for the day. But in the last hour of trading, we gave it all back to close lower on the day. SPX lost $3 to close at $2083 and RUT lost $4 to close at $1205.Volatility was essentially flay with the VIX dropping a tenth of a point to 13.5%. Trading volume fell sharply with 1.9 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading. Trading on the NYSE dropped 20% and declined 21% on NASDAQ.
Initial unemployment claims increased slightly to 274k from 269k and continuing unemployment claims increased to 2.273 million from 2.258M. Retail sales increased 0.6% in July, an improvement over June's fat zero.
Are we stuck in this trading range until the Fed meeting? That's over a month away...
