STOCKS CLIMB FOR 8TH STRAIGHT DAY: Here's What You Need To Know (DIA, SPY, QQQ)

The S&P and Dow have now closed in the green for eight days in a row.



First, the scoreboard:




* Dow: 15,484.2, +19.9, +0.1%

* S&P 500: 1,682.5, +2.3, +0.1%

* NASDAQ: 3,607.4, +7.4, +0.2%



And now, the top stories:



* The Dow and S&P 500 closed at new all-time highs today. The last time the S&P closed up was November 2004.

*were disappointing.The headline sales figure climbed by just 0.4%, falling short of expectations for a 0.8% gain. Excluding autos and gas, sales unexpectedly fell 0.1%. Economists were looking for a 0.4% gain.

* Immediately after the report, economists at Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank . "Today's number complicates Q2 GDP estimates," . "Q2 should be less than 1.0%, the second time in 3 qtrs GDP is less than 1.0%. That's not very good."

* Still, stocks rallied.cranked up her year-end target for the S&P 500 to 1,750 from 1,600. "Our new 2013 year-end target of 1750 implies modest upside from current levels, attributable to expected earnings growth, contrasting with returns so far this year driven by multiple expansion," she said. "While the decline in the equity risk premium (ERP) has been more than twice what we expected, we think it is justified by diminished tail risks, positive surprises in the US economy, and, as expected, a continued decline in earnings volatility."



* The jumped to 9.5 in July from 7.8 in June. Economists expected the number tick down to 5.0. "Details of the report were stronger," noted UBS's Sam Coffin. "New orders and shipments indexes bounded into positive territory after having signaled contraction, and the employment index also rose."

* Over night, we learned that decelerated to just 7.5% in Q2, down from 7.7% in Q1. Economists and investors around the world are finally getting used to the idea that China's years of blazing hot growth are a thing of the past.

* DON'T MISS:
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