Market Wrap: IMF Cuts Outlook; Retail Sales Stall, Fall; Yahoo!'s Unexpected CEO; Virtually Microsoft

Market wrap-up for July 16th

End of the Day: Dow Jones Industrial Average down 49.9 to 12,727.21; S&P 500 down 3.1 to 1,353.64; Nasdaq down 11.5 to 2,896.94

The following is a brief summary of events moving markets today:

• Maybe it'll be revised higher in September..: U.S. markets ended largely lower Monday, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its outlook for global growth in 2012. According to data out earlier, the IMF said it sees economies expanding 3.5 percent, down from its prior outlook of 3.6 percent growth. Despite the modest drop, its the lowest outlook by the organization in three years.
  
  Key factors in the new outlook include emerging market governments efforts to spur growth taking hold; new, significant policy action in Europe; aversion of a tighter fiscal policy in the U.S. during 2012.
  
  The IMF noted that weaker European nations are back to the same level they were ahead of the European Central Bank (ECB) moving to support growth. Those actions have faded with broader issues still remaining in the region.
  
  
• From left field: After the market closed Monday, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) said it appointed Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Marissa Mayer as its new CEO. For more color from the release, click here.
  
  The announcement was a bit of a shocker; last week, headlines had interim CEO Ross Levinsohn all but sealing the deal for the permanent spot, though Yahoo! shut those rumors down shortly thereafter.
  
  
• Financials and second-quarter profits are just like peas and carrots: happier together: Citi (NYSE: C) kept the bank earnings train chugging, with solid second-quarter 2012 numbers of its own today.
  
  Adjusted EPS came in at $1 on revs of $18.85 billion, versus consensus views calling for EPS of 86 cents and revs of $18.76 billion.
  
  Results follow JPMorgan's numbers last Friday, though there were a number of adjustments based on CIO trading losses and loss reserve adjustments.
  
  
• Retail sales slip in June, except one burgeoning segment: Data from the U.S. Commerce Department today showed retail sales falling 0.5 points in June, missing views calling for a 0.2 point gain. The department noted that sales were hampered by slippage in the dollar value of gasoline as a result of falling crude prices. Though less money spent at the pump is a good thing, the spend-through hasn't happened yet as prices of food, electronics, building materials, and other items remains at elevated levels.
  
  As noted earlier, non-store sales rose 0.5 points in the month. Non-store sales mainly encompasses e-commerce buying from a retailers website, rather than having to travel to a physical location to buy something.
  
  Car and auto part sales fell 0.6 points as well.
  
  
• "So you should ask yourself, with every decision that you make..is this good for the company?": Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) unveiled its new Office platform today, Office 2013. The offering will make better use of cloud computing, as Microsoft looks to compete more wholly with rival Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) in the virtualization space.
  
  The move is notable, given that Office exceeds even Windows in contributing to Microsoft's overall profit.
  
  One of the key points some business might heed is cost: Microsoft's Office 365 -- its first venture into enterprise cloud apps -- is at least 50 percent more expensive than Google Apps. Microsoft challenge, no matter how it tries to build value with enterprise customers, will be to keep the price down. No matter the size of the company, price is still a key factor. Especially when its markedly higher.

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