Congress Departs, Housing and Jobs Arrive: AdvisorOne Briefing for the Week of Oct. 4, 2010

While the week of October 4th sees Congress leaving the Capital to concentrate on the business of getting re-elected—or elected—reports emanating from Washington are still likely to move the markets and affect advisors and their clients as we enter the fourth quarter of 2010. Closer to home for this writer and his colleagues, AdvisorOne.com launches as what we hope will be a destination online site for advisors who have come to rely on the editors of Investment Advisor and Research magazine, of WealthManagerWeb.com and BoomerMarketAdvisor.com, to keep them informed and well-armed with the news, analysis and data they need to serve their clients better and run their practices more profitably.

The market-moving news this week begins Monday, Oct. 4, with release of the pending home sales report from the National Association of Realtors. Advisors will be watching the price of gold as well; on Oct. 1, we reported that gold and other precious-metal ETFs hit record highs. Also on Monday, the Census Bureau releases factory orders for September. Ben Warwick of Aspen Partners and Searching for Alpha fame provides a look back at how asset classes performed in the third quarter, and what we might expect in the fourth. Hint: It’s still a good time to buy equities.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke continues his fall college concert tour with a speech in Providence, R.I. Also a likely market-mover: the Canadian government receives a report from the Conference Board of Canada on whether the Potash Corp. takeover bid would be beneficial for Saskatchewan. The Bank of Japan will decide whether to further ease monetary policy.

On Tuesday, Oct. 5, comes several assessments of retail sales, including the Redbook and ICSC-Goldman Sachs reports. In Paris, a verdict is likely in the case of Societe Generale rogue trader Jerome Kerviel. Also, the Institute for Supply Management releases its Non-Manufacturing Index