• Fell for the fourth week in a row.
• Off 7.42% in four weeks.
• Lowest close since April 28.
• Today, it fell 36.65 points, or 0.45%.
• Today’s top contributors to the Dow’s movement and their point contribution: MMM (5.29), AXP (3.17), BA (2.65), MCD (2.12), KFT (2.12).
• Today’s laggers and their point contribution: CVX (-12.70), JPM (-9.67), IBM (-9.45), XOM (-6.42), MRK (-4.23).

Nasdaq Composite, down 40.49 points this week, or 2.25% to 1756.03.

• Fell two straight weeks and three of the last four.
• Fell 4.47% the past two weeks.
• Today, it rose 3.48 points, or 0.20%.

S&P 500, down 17.29 points this week, or 1.93% to 879.13.

• Down four weeks in a row.
• Off 7.09% during the four week period.
• Today, it fell 3.55 points, or 0.40%.

• Down for the fourth consecutive week.
• Biggest weekly percentage decline since week ended January 30, 2009.
• Today, it is down $0.52 or 0.86%.

Comex gold for July delivery lost $18.50 per troy ounce this week, or 1.99% to $912.20.

• Fell for the second straight week and five of the last six.
• Down 6.80% over the six week period.
• Today, it fell $3.70, or 0.40%.

Comex copper for July delivery fell 8.95 cents a pound this week, or 3.91% to $2.2005.

• Fell for the second week in a row and three of the last four.
• Today, copper fell 2.60 cents, or 1.17%.

• Down for the second straight week and three of the last four.
• Down 5.97% over the last two weeks.
• Largest weekly percentage decline since the week ending January 23.
• Today, it is down 3.78 points, or 0.04%.
• Down 6.74% over the last eight trading days.

Shanghai Composite, up 25.56 points this week, or 0.83% to 3113.93.

• Up for the fourth straight week.
• Up 13.49% over the last four weeks.
• Today, it is down 9.10 points, or 0.29%.

FTSE 100, down 109.11 points this week, or 2.58% to 4127.17.

• Down for the fourth straight week.
• Down 314.78 points, or 7.09%, over the past four weeks.
• Today, it is down 31.49 points, or 0.76%.

DJ STOXX 600, down 6.83 points this week, or 3.35% to 197.25.

• Down for the fourth straight week.
• Down 17.10 points, or 7.98%, over the past four weeks.
• Today, it is down 2.16 points, or 1.08%.

• Rose two straight days and three of the last four.
• Today’s top contributors to the Dow’s movement and their point contribution: IBM (10.58), JPM (6.88), DD (2.42), CVX (2.27), DIS (2.19).

Nasdaq Composite, up 5.38 points, or 0.31% to 1752.55.

• Up two straight days.

S&P 500, up 3.12 points, or 0.35% to 882.68.

• First gain in three days.

Goldman accused a former employee, Sergey Aleynikov, of stealing 35 megabytes of trading code from the investment bank, an accusation Marketbeat discussed in a post July 6.

In a commentary Thursday Iati offers some thoughts about how important algorithmic trading has become to the market. His conclusion hints at the significant power of the programmers.

“Electronic routing and execution has become the mechanism by which our capital markets operate. Algorithms account for more than 25% of all shares traded by the buy side today—a number steadily rising for several years now. However, the incredible capabilities offered by technology have given meteoric rise to a relatively few high frequency proprietary trading firms that now wield far greater influence on the markets today than most people recognize. The familiar names of Lehman, Bear and Merrill are being replaced by less familiar ones like Wolverine, IMC and Getco.”

Iati notes that high-frequency trading firms include proprietary trading desks for a small number of major investment banks. Only 2% of the nation’s 20,000 trading firms in the U.S. markets, they account for 73% of all U.S. equity volume.

These funds are designed to “capture profit opportunities by being smarter and faster than the closest competition. They are, as a rule, secretive, stealthy, smart, and relatively unknown. The key to being smarter is their unique technology that enables them to profit on a number of these quantitative strategies, which they will protect at all costs.”

• Halts a six day losing streak.

Comex gold for July delivery gained $6.90 per troy ounce, or 0.76% to $915.90.

• Only the third gain in the past eight sessions.

Comex copper for July delivery jumped 7.85 cents per pound, or 3.65% to $2.2265.

• Snaps a four day losing streak.
• Biggest dollar and percent gain in a month, since June 9.

• Down everyday this month (seventh straight day).
• Down 6.70% over the last seven trading days.

Shanghai Composite, up 42.26 points, or 1.37%, to 3123.04.

• Up five of the last seven trading days.

FTSE 100, up 18.43 points, or 0.45% to 4158.66.

• Snaps a three day losing streak.

DJ STOXX 600, up 1.38 points, or 0.70% to 199.41.

• Snaps a five day losing streak.

Bearish Sentiment was on the rise as of July 8, according to the latest weekly investor poll from the American Association of Individual Investors. Over at the Big Picture, Peter Boockvar notes that this data is pretty fickle week to week. Still, Bespoke Investment — which provided the chart, above — notes that “bearish sentiment is currently at 54.65%, which is higher than any other point since March 5th.”

FWIW, plenty of market watchers view sentiment measures as something of contrarian indicators when they hit extremes. The theory goes like this: If investors become extremely bullish, that can mean most capital is already at work in the stock market, with little resting in dusty money market mutual funds that could be shifted later into shares. On the other hand, bearish sentiment readings can be positive for stock prices since it might mean bears are stashing their cash somewhere outside of stocks. That money could flow into the stock market if they start feeling more bullish, possibly driving up shares.

Of course, between those huge extremes, there’s a lot of grey area where bearish sentiment might well be, well, bearish.

Advertising Archive / Everett Collection

An increasing number of companies appear poised to divest a piece of their business into the public market - a trend that could be a bad omen for the stock market.

Carve-outs, when a company sells a unit or small piece of itself to the market, can be an essential part of the survival plan for larger corporations. By divesting non-core assets, these firms can create a more streamlined corporate focus, not to mention the benefit of added capital that comes from a stock offering.

But beneath the surface, carve-outs provide the same concern for investors as a host of other seemingly last-ditch efforts. Carve-outs are often done out of necessity, as other forms of raising capital completely dry up. And this lack of being able to find capital can be as harmful to investors’ sentiment about corporations as it is for the corporations themselves.

Overall, the market for carve-outs has been relatively quiet in the last few months. In April, May and June, for example, these types of divestitures didn’t equal the monthly totals in any of the year’s first three months. It may be a coincidence but, as carve-outs slowed down, the stock market picked up, with the S&P 500 tacking on 15% in April, May and June.

But mergers-and-acquisitions experts say the slowdown may be coming to an end, and investors are skittish about what that means for stocks.

“The carve-out market is going to be huge in the third quarter,” said Maria Pinelli, Americas director of strategic growth markets at Ernst & Young.

A myriad of companies have seen stock gains following the divestiture, along with gains for the newly created stand-alone company. One recent example is Bristol-Myers Squibb’s move in February to spin out its Mead Johnson unit. Mead Johnson, which received net proceeds of $782 million, is currently trading more than 35% above its IPO price.

Bristol-Myers slid along with the broader market in March, but has since tacked on 12%

Historically, carve-outs haven’t been a major part of chief executives’ playbooks, especially in the U.S. From 2000 through 2005, months would go by without a single move. But from September 2005 through March 2006, more than 12 U.S. companies engaged in carve-outs. In the two and a half months that followed, the S&P 500 fell nearly 7%.

Recent evidence is even more damning. According to Dealogic, carve-outs peaked with 183 in December 2008, and 127 in January 2009. Within two months, on March 9, the S&P was at its lowest point in more than a decade.

Even though a carve-out can strip value for shareholders as companies relinquish certain products or business lines, they don’t always cause the stock of the company involved to fall.

But, inasmuch as a raft of carve-outs could indicate that companies in general are facing tough times, they do reflect broader market sentiment.

“At this point, it’s still corporations selling in a down market,” said Hiter Harris, co-founder of M&A advisory firm Harris Williams. “Some are doing it to clean up their balance sheet. Others are just in distress and selling what they don’t need.”

ABC.com

Talk about stimulus!

In an interview this morning with ABC News Good Morning America, Warren Buffett suggested that a second government bill to give the economy a jolt, saying “I think that a second one may well be called for.”

In an effort to explain his thinking, the septogenarian Billionaire investor turned to something of a strange simile. “Our first stimulus bill, it seems to me, was sort of like taking a half a tablet of Viagra, you know, and then having also a bunch of candy mixed in you know — everybody was putting in things for their own constituencies — it doesn’t have really quite the wallop that might have been anticipated.”

Just, uh. Weird.