After a rollercoaster ride of a week, the markets ended down, owing to a big final dip on Friday.  For the week, the Dow was down .2%, the S&P.7%, and the NASDAQ .7%. Sadly, we again dropped below 10,000 before the week was out.

The dip on Tuesday might be blamed on the housing numbers for last month, which showed 590,000 starts, compared with the 610,000 that were expected.  On Thursday, initial jobless claims were  announced.  The figures were higher than many expected, up 11,00 from last week to 531,000, after a trail of consecutive decreases.   Earnings figures helped propel stocks through the week, with many earnings results even better than we had hoped.  However, the boost was evidently not enough.

There continues to be net flow of cash out of equities.  As we are known to advise, investors help us know what’s right by doing what’s wrong.

Next week, we look toward durable orders numbers for a picture of the manufacturing sector.  Durable orders are considered a leading indicator, so they may show us what’s coming next in manufacturing activity.  Also next week we will see consumer confidence data.  We hope the figures will have improved- all the talk of an immediate recovery should have helped to loosen purse strings a bit.