Buenos Aires, Argentina Is the rally still on? We’re not sure. Wednesday, the Dow fell 83 points…after a weak bounce on Tuesday. We expected the rally to last until June and to take the Dow back to the 10,000 range. But anything could happen.

A surprise to few, luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL) posted its second consecutive quarterly net loss today (Tuesday), though the results were better than Wall Street expected.

A severe US recession is less likely following better-than-forecast May data from US manufacturers. This from Bloomberg:

Demand from overseas for U.S.-made products is helping to keep factories running even as spending by American consumers and businesses slows. The improvement signals the U.S. may be able to avoid a deep and protracted economic slowdown as the housing slump worsens and food and fuel prices soar.

The US housing crisis looks sets to deepen after S&P’s/Case-Shiller Home Price index showed that home prices in 20 US cities fell almost 13% in February from a year earlier. This from AP:

“Month-to-month, it gets consistently worse,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P, noting that February also marked the sixth straight month that all 20 cities experienced declines. “The slope is one direction. There is no sign of a bottom.”

This is the third installment of a new Money Morning series highlighting investment opportunities created by the global bull market in commodities. There’s a classic squeeze going on in the timber markets right now.

US foreclosure filings climbed 65% and bank seizures more than doubled in April from a year earlier as mortgage industry efforts to modify loans fell short, reports Bloomberg.

More than 243,300 properties were in some stage of foreclosure, the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data, began in January 2005. One in every 519 households received a filing and Nevada, California and Florida had the highest rates. Filings rose 4 percent from March.

The great overreach continues…there’s so much noise in the financial markets, one can barely think straight. Housing slump may exceed the Great Depression…the profit parade in commodities marches on. We pity the next president…the subprime debacle has produced a tsunami of lawsuits…and more!

Time was, “As General Motors goes, so goes the nation.” What would be the suitable substitute for GM in post-industrial, post-modern, post-Bretton Woods America? Wal-Mart? Or maybe Starbucks?

More ‘bad’ news for the housing market yesterday. Surveyors are writing smaller numbers on the top of their housing valuation reports.

According to AP, fears of a deep recession “drove Federal Reserve policymakers to slash a key interest rate last month, meeting minutes show.”