Powayseller, every single one of the factors you mention is well known to the markets — old news, in fact. Investors have known about Iraq, high fuel prices, fairly soft employment numbers, and the potential for a housing slowdown for well over a year and so these have all been fully discounted.
So what will move markets?
Anything that differs dramatically from the above trends. You don’t need ‘good’ news to move a market or individual stocks; you just need newsflow that is not worse than consensus. Which is what we’ve had the last couple of months.
