The Big Picture - Macro Perspective on the Capital Markets, Economy, Technology, and Digital Media

While it’s not official yet, a private sector rescue of CIT is welcome news to many small businesses, especially many retailers and their vendors weeks before the back to school season begins. Also, many take cues from the trends in BTS in planning their year end holiday season and having CIT’s factoring business alive to fight another day hopefully provides a stable background for planning. The sigh of relief is evident in the rally in global equities, the rise in bond yields, the 7 week low in the $ index and subsequent rise in commodity prices. With the economic calendar light this week, attention will remain on both earnings and revenue season. Also this week, Bernanke gives his semi annual testimony on the economy and monetary policy in front of Congressional members. While the recent discussion on the Fed has been on QE and exit strategies, the fed funds rate at essentially zero and for how long is another dilemma for them.