Market briefing --- Matt (slow)
Yuan free floating --- Catherine (medium)
>> two reports today from morgan stanley and goldman sachs, four of the country’s investment firms have posted near-record profits for the second quarter. however, since that period closed, trading volume has fallen by about 20%, a fact some say could crimp results going forward. let’s take a closer look at a couple of things i’ve put together on the bloomberg terminal.% first and foremost, take a look% at volume.% that bide air―wide arrow marks their second quarter ending in may, averaging 1.5 billion shares on the new york stock exchange and it’s tapered off since then. some say it’s the summer season getting an early start. perhaps. also worth looking at is the down trend. the white line is the s&p investment banking index and the orange line is the combination of the nyse and the nasdaq volume. you can see clearly the two moving down together. also, worth looking at, is this inverse correlation. this is clearly two securities moving in the opposite direction. the grown arrow follows the dollar index up 2.5% year to date. if you look at the dollar versus primary rivals, it’s up against 12 of 16 foreign currencies year to date. the dollar index is rising. you hear a lot of people saying they’re sitting in cash, demand-supply, i think you understand how that works. the red arrow is the volume number declining as we pointed out year to date. one of the other stories that’s% a factor is lackluster interest in the market . we’ve been talking about a trading range. some wonder what is a trading range. i put a red box around it to show you exactly what it is. it’s the market stuck westbound a―within a particular area. in this case, the s&p 500 bouncing between 1100 and heaven 50, a 4.5% price swing. doing that mostly for most of the year between 1100 and 1150. looking at the three-month price moves, some of the declines have brought p.e. levels down to low levels. about half of what people are expecting from the s&p 500. u.s. commerce secretary donald evans says china may be willing to be more flexible in its exchange rate. catherine yang joins us from hong kong with more. cathy, good morning. what does this mean, rather than having a fixed rate, that we may soon see markets determining or the yuan free floating?
>> the revaluation of the yuan is just one of the three items that secretary evans presented on his wish list when he met with wen jiabao in beijing. he wants to make clear the rules for imports on foreign investment. evans says fixing these issues is necessary. the recognition for china as an economy, chinese companies are benefited and exporting to the u.s. evans cited that wen didn’t put a time line on it. evans is on a week-long visit to china to promote american exports at a time when the bush administration is criticized for not doing enough to address the widening trade gap with china. today, evans will meet with the chinese trading minister and vice premier to address the duty to stop u.s. duties imports to china. corning is confessing duties of 16% slapped on imports last weekend. the other is general motors. matt?
>> cathy, thank you. we’ll have to leave it there because of time. you know how the commercial guillotine works at bloomberg. london’s art auction is underway. will it take a cue from new york? strong art sales here. look at that painting.
