U.S. AVERAGES

The averages lifted from the narrow trading range when Fed released the survey of the economic climate around the country. According to the report economy appears to have been rebounded and measured inflation is contained. Early market gains were built on strong earnings, better-than-anticipated manufacturing activity and rising distillate inventory.

The mid-day recovery in indexes was broad across various sectors including wireless services, restaurants, consumer durables, technology and home builders.

June durable orders jumped 1.4% compared to estimated 1% decline and May orders were revised to 6.4% upwards. New home sales jumped in June to 1.37 million, 4% increasing from May and 14% from a year ago. Weekly Petroleum report suggested that the gasoline and crude production has increased and distillate inventory last week had increased substantially.

Parade of earnings continues to flood the market with positive surprise. Boeing, Centex, Amazon, Conoco Philips, Sprint, Corning are few notables with significant gains.

Shares of Infospace, P F Chang, Anheuser Busch, Alliance Capital, Yankee Candle, CEC Entertainment, Tupperware, and Trimble Navigation were among the significant decliners.

ECONOMIC NEWS

New Manufacturing Orders

New orders for manufactured durable goods in June were $215.4 billion, up
1.4% from May. Overall shipments were $207.9 billion, down 0.1%, while
non-defense capital goods shipments were $69.3 billion, virtually unchanged
from May.

Existing Home Sales

Sales of new one-family houses in June 2005 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,374,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 4.0 percent above the revised May rate of 1,321,000 and is 14.0 percent above the June 2004 estimate of 1,205,000.

The median sales price of new houses sold in June 2005 was $214,800; the average sales price was $267,400. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of June was 454,000. This represents a supply of 4.0 months at the current sales rate.

Weekly Petroleum Report

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged nearly 15.8 million barrels per day during the week ending July 22, up 173,000 barrels per day from the previous week's average. Refineries operated at 93.5 percent of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline and distillate fuel production increased substantially, averaging over 8.7 million barrels per day and 4.3 million barrels per day, respectively.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged over 9.9 million barrels per day last week, down 885,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports have averaged over 10.2 million barrels per day, a decrease of 117,000 barrels per day from the comparable four weeks last year.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories dropped by 2.3 million barrels for the week of July 22nd. At 317.8 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories remain above the upper end of the average range for this time of year. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 2.1 million barrels last week, putting them in the upper half of the average range. Distillate fuel inventories rose by 3.1 million barrels last week, and are near the upper end of the average range for this time of year.

Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 2.3 million barrels last week, but they remain near the upper end of the average range for this time of year.

Total product supplied over the last four-week period has averaged nearly 20.9 million barrels per day, or 1.3 percent more than averaged over the same period last year. Over the last four weeks, motor gasoline demand has averaged 9.5 million barrels per day, or 2.4 percent above the same period last year.

Distillate fuel demand has averaged 4.0 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, or 3.5 percent above the same period last year. Kerosene-type jet fuel demand is up 3.3 percent over the last four weeks compared to the same four-week period last year. Comparisons to last year now reflect recent revisions to 2004 data.


INTERNATIONAL MARKET NEWS