In This Issue:

Leading the Past Week; Legislative Branch; Executive Branch; and Upcoming Hearings.

Excerpt from Leading the Past Week

The downward spiral of negative news continued to pick up steam last week. First, there were growing concerns about the future stability of the Euro zone as the economies of Greece and now Spain continue to raise red flags. Next, following the problems associated with Facebook?s much ballyhooed IPO, concerns about the general health of global equity markets surfaced as other IPOs were postponed or indefinitely delayed. Then on Friday, an anemic jobs report hit the wires, compounded by the first downward revision of the previous month?s report in some time, only further served to depress markets.