Evening Briefing for July 29th

* THEMES FROM WEDNESDAY'S TRADE - On the heels of a steep drop in China's share market, we saw an unwinding of many of the risk trades. The U.S. dollar rallied vs. the euro and commodity prices tumbled. Despite these dynamics, the U.S. stock market held above its overnight lows and turned in a range bound performance. This also kept us above the 7/24 lows and within the multiday trading range. I thought that this was a particularly resilient performance for stocks; as long as we hold above the Wednesday overnight lows, I expect to see us testing bull highs and the 1000 level in SPX before long. Failure to hold those lows would represent fresh selling pressure and a break in the multiday range, suggesting a potentially more significant correction to the recent rise.

* OVERSEAS/OVERNIGHT NUMBERS: 2:50 AM CT - Germany, unemployment; 4:00 AM CT - EU, economic sentiment; 7:30 AM CT - Canada, industrial and raw material price indexes; 6:30 PM CT - Japan, CPI, unemployment, household spending.

* EARNINGS: ALU, AZN, CI, EK, XOM, FTE, GT, HP, K, MA, MET, MOT, NWL, NYX, SNE, TEN.

* WORTH READING:

-- Mean reversion trading strategies aren't working so well;

-- A good look at weak consumer confidence;

-- Consumer confidence better, but not consumer spending;

-- 30% of China's GDP is held in agency and treasury debt;

-- FDIC to split troubled banks to find buyers;

-- Nice review of ETFs.
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