Obama's New Tax, A Rate Decision, Inflation Data Ahead

Wall Street pushed higher yesterday despite weaker than expected fundamental data. The S&P500 closed with a minor gain of 0.24%, while the Nasdaq closed higher by 0.38%. Expectations of a better than expected report from Intel helped to support the intraday session, while news headlines stating that Obama intends to implement a new tax on banks, reassured taxpayers that their money was going to be returned to the government.

According to ABCnews; Financial institutions with assets of $50 billion or more will be forced to pay back Tarp money through a form of a new tax. Some of those banks include Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. According to the ABC, a tax of 0.15 percent will be implemented on bank liabilities, excluding FDIC-assessed deposits and insurance policy reserves.

On the fundamental side, Retail Sales and Initial Jobless Claims both disappointed investors. Retails sales slipped by 0.3% in December after an upward revised 1.8% gain in November. The largest decrease was in electronics and appliance stores, falling 2.6%, while sporting goods soared higher by 1.6%. The number of people who filed for unemployment benefits increased by 444.00k, compared to an expected 434.00k

When analyzing the nine different sectors, one can see that the session was characterized by a fall in materials. Healthcare managed to keep the indices a float closing with a gain of 0.9%

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