- Time’s Curious Capitalist blogger John Curran offers several themes to keep an eye on about current market conditions. “First, stocks are going nowhere,” he says, as there are lots of headlines and big moves in both directions, but the market is still flat year-to-date. Corporate earnings are way up, though mostly on cost-cutting. Oil prices are inching backing up, especially as dollar weakens. Consumer spending isn’t improving, savings rate is increasing and European debt crisis isn’t over.
- AOL’s struggling so much that it couldn’t even meet the Street’s diminished 2Q expectations. MediaMemo blogger Peter Kafka notes two important themes to watch: AOL’s ad business and rate of decline at its subscription business.
- Investors and consumers have been so conditioned to look out for inflation that the threat of deflation, particularly in housing and wages, isn’t being taken as seriously as it should be, Yves Smith writes at naked capitalism. “It is hard to prove in a tidy way, but I see more signs of discounting in the economy, even in goods and services aimed at upper income consumers supposedly unaffected by the downturn.”
- “Inflation expectations are falling and there is currently no end in sight,” notes David Beckworth, assistant professor of economics at Texas State University. “Let me be very clear what all of this implies: by failing to stabilize inflation expectations the Fed is effectively tightening monetary policy at a most inopportune time. I hope this is not how the Fed wants to be remembered.”
- Hackers have released their latest set of instructions to help iPhone 4 owners run their devices on multiple carriers.
- Bearish sentiment among advisers fell for a second-straight week, according to Investors Intelligence. Now, only 33% of the survey’s respondents say they are in the bearish camp. “While a decline in bearish sentiment is typical when equities rise, one could make the case that it should be lower,” Bespoke Investment Group says. “After all, the current level of bearish sentiment is the same now as it was when the S&P 500 was trading at it correction lows in early July.”
- “Maybe, just maybe, the thing to do is let the deleveraging/saving/expense cutting process take place,” Credit Writedowns says. “Just as forest fires are a part of the natural life cycle of forests, so is the cleansing and seeding process of an economic downturn.”
- Research In Motion’s (RIMM) Torch may be the best BlackBerry to date, but it’s not as good as Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone or the plethora of phones using Google’s (GOOG) Android software, Dan Frommer writes at Silicon Alley Insider. “The biggest problem is that RIM has not been able to build a mobile operating system that feels nearly as modern and elegant as Android or Apple’s iOS,” Frommer says. “As a result, even RIM’s newest phone feels old next to a new iPhone or Android device.”
- Oracle’s Larry Ellison joins other billionaires in following a call by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to pledge the majority of their wealth to charity.
- Mosque near Ground Zero gains approval, but opponents are expected to fight it in court.
