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It was a pretty uneventful day to kick off a very exciting week.
First the scoreboard:
Dow: 13,073, -2.6, -0.0%

S&P 500: 1,385, -0.6, -0.0%

NASDAQ: 2,945, -12.2, -0.4%

And now the top stories:

  • This will be an extremely busy week for economic data. On Tuesday, we hear about U.S. personal income, consumer sentiment and housing prices. From Tuesday through Wednesday, we will get the purchasing managers index reports from all of the major economies around the world.  On Wednesday and Thursday, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank all publish their interest rate announcements.  And Friday, we get the big U.S. non-farm payrolls report. 

  • But today was rather uneventful, and markets didn't really do much.

  • The June Dallas Fed Manufacturing survey was a huge miss.  The index plummeted to -13.2 from 5.8 a month ago.  However, it's worth noting that employment growth continued in July.

  • Warm weather sent natural gas prices surging today as consumers burn more energy to keep their homes cool.  Prices jumped over 5 percent.

  • Heat also sent corn prices higher again.  As the midwest drought continues to devastate farms, traders are increasing their bets that crop yields will continue to fall.

  • Markets have shown remarkable resilience in light of all of this uncertainty.  According to analysts surveyed by FactSet, in Q3 corporate profits will fall for the first time in 11 quarters.  Yet, according to the options market, investors aren't scared at all.

  • Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker, one of the more bearish strategists on Wall Street, is struggling to explain why the S&P 500 hasn't moved closer toward his year-end target of 1,167.  "Where could we be wrong?" he asks rhetorically in a new note to clients.  One bullish catalyst to the markets would be corporate cash coming off of the sidelines, which could happen if Mitt Romney were elected president, writes Parker.