Monday morning coming down

The lead story Monday morning will no doubt concern world financial markets in the wake of Friday’s central bank bailout (and make no mistake, it was a bailout, albeit of the backdoor variety, through the repurchase market). If form holds, stock markets will convulse within a rather large trading range with investors seizing upon the smallest shaft of light emanating from relevant economic data.

This week that data will consist of July’s US retail sales and the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures. It is one of life’s little ironies that, almost immediately after the Federal Reserve Board flooded the marketplace with $38 billion on Friday, the CPI comes out this week. If the CPI report shows higher-than-expected inflation trends, it will put the Fed in a tough spot, especially since the Fed has repeated consistently that its primary goal remains reducing inflationary pressure on the economy, something not helped by Friday’s rainstorm of cash, especially if subsequent rounds of repo transactions are forthcoming.

On a lighter note, other items that will likely be in the news:

As reminded by The Economist (?!), this week marks the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. The magazine cited that there are now 35,000 professional Elvis impersonators. For perspective, that means Elvises outnumber the Catholic Church’s largest male religious order (the Society of Jesus) by an almost 2-to-1 margin, giving evidence that the United States is indeed a very religious country—I’m just not quite certain what that religion is…

…And speaking of religion, the New York Yankees continue their impersonation of Lazarus. Don’t look now, but the Yanks have climbed to within four games of the division-leading Boston Red Sox and have made up 10½ games over the last month or so. I had maintained that the Yankees’ recent surge was a product of a particularly weak post-All Star game schedule, but to its credit, New York just swept three games versus a very good Cleveland Indians team at Jacobs Field, outscoring the Tribe 22 to 6. Meanwhile, Boston is struggling. After this weekend, I think we can safely say there is a pennant chase in the American League East…

…And don’t forget that this week marks the end of The Divagator’s first-annual terza rima contest. I haven’t exactly been flooded with entries and may have to pen the winning entry myself in order the further the pretense that anyone actually reads this blog.