Thoughts

P is nothing more than another trading sardine. The company sold 14.7 million shares in its IPO, and 41 million shares have already traded today.



Even if one cannot stand YHOO, it's a hard-to-resist value right now. Under 15 it's a good buy...



Today's June Empire State Manufacturing Index came in at -7.8 vs. expectations of 12 (which was the same print as May).

This indicates a contraction in manufacturing.

This is the first negative reading in seven months and compares disappointingly with the long-term average of 10.0. And it compares adversely to the average read of 12.0 in 2011.



Retail observations of Bill King of The King Report, who made the following observations this morning:

* The prior month (April) retail sales revised down from +0.5% to +0.3%.
* Retail sales, ex-auto, exhibited the smallest gain since July.
* And gasoline station sales increased 0.3%; ex-gasoline May retail sales declined 0.3%.

Stated simply, this, when combined with dropping home and equity prices and the limited growth in compensation, is screwflation of the middle class.



Sam Zell is buying an office building in Chicago, which is a good sign for the non-residential real estate market.

"We've chosen this point to re-enter the market because we think the fundamentals are getting better."

-- Sam Zell, Wall Street Journal interview this morning