It had been a rather uneventful workday for Ray Carbone, a 47-year-old oil and gas trader who owns Paramount Options, a small energy commodities trading firm in New York. Perched on the outer edge of the options pit at the New York Mercantile Exchange—one of six arenas on the floor where traders bellow and gesture wildly to move their wares—Carbone was biding his time. There had been a sharp decline in oil prices the previous day, refusing to break $60 a barrel for the third straight...
eBay Listings That Keep Customers Attracted
February 28, 2007 on 9:07 pm | In Finance |
Updated from 9:36 a.m. EST
Positive remarks from the Federal Reserve chairman boosted stocks Wednesday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached yet another new intraday record.
About an hour in to trading, the Dow was up 61 points, or 0.5%, at 12,716, having touched an all-time high of 12,720.47 earlier. Of the Dow’s 30 components, 24 were in positive territory, led by gains of 1.6% in Caterpillar (CAT) and Verizon (VZ) .
The S&P 500 was adding 9 points, or 0.6%, at 1453. The Nasdaq Composite was ahead by 24 points, or 1%, to 2484.
During his address to the Senate Banking Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank is comfortable with interest rates and that some tentative signs of stabilization have recently appeared in the housing market.
“Inflation pressures appear to have abated somewhat,” Bernanke said in his prepared testimony, before adding that the “monthly data are noisy, however, and it will consequently be some time before we can be confident that underlying inflation is moderating as anticipated.”
Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist with Spencer Clarke LLC, said that Bernanke’s speech is exactly what the markets were looking for.
“His outlook includes solid growth in 2007 along with diminishing inflation concerns,” said Sheldon. “He did highlight that housing will be a drag for some time, but that sector is starting to stabilize. It’s what the markets wanted to hear.”
Bernanke will continue his Congressional testimony on Thursday when he addresses the House of Representatives.
U.S. equities got a nice boost Tuesday as talk of a takeover for Alcoa (AA) and an upgrade of GM (GM) helped spur buying. The Dow posted a triple-digit gain to 12,654.85, and the Nasdaq gained 9.50 points, or 0.39%, to 2459.88.
Before the opening bell, the Commerce Department said U.S. retail sales were unexpectedly flat last month, compared with a 0.9% rise in December. Economists expected a 0.3% increase. Excluding autos, January sales rose 0.3%, also less than anticipated.
Meanwhile, Treasury prices were on the rise. The 10-year note was up 16/32 in price, yielding 4.75%, and the 30-year bond was higher by 29/32 and yielding 4.84%. That action suggests the bond market is seeing less of a chance for rate hikes anytime soon.
On the corporate side, automaker DaimlerChrysler (DCX) announced a restructuring plan that will see it terminate roughly 13,000 jobs. Earlier, the company said fourth-quarter earnings fell 40% from a year earlier due to an operating loss out of its Chrysler Group. Shares were rising by $2.61, or 4.1%, to $67.06.
Among earnings, soft-drink giant and Dow component Coca-Cola (KO) posted fourth-quarter adjusted profits of 52 cents a share on revenue of $5.93 billion. Both numbers topped analysts’ consensus. Coca-Cola was off by 31 cents, or 0.6%, to $47.90.
Farm-equipment maker Deere (DE) got past Wall Street’s fiscal first-quarter estimates and said its second quarter and full year should be in line with the current forecasts. Deere shares were jumping by $7.03, or 6.9%, to $109.70.
Retailer Jones Apparel (JNY) swung to a fourth-quarter loss of $269.5 million, or $2.51 a share, compared with a year-ago profit of $55.7 million, or 48 cents a share. Excluding items, Jones earned 53 cents a share and beat the Thomson First Call consensus of 46 cents a share. The stock was off 3 cents, or 0.1%, to $34.13.
Crude futures eased following the latest weekly inventory report from the Energy Department. Lately, the near-month contract was down 58 cents at $58.48 a barrel. Natural gas was rising 4 cents to $7.41 per million British thermal units.
Last week, crude inventories decreased by 600,000 barrels. Distillate supplies fell by 3 million barrels, while gasoline stocks slipped by only 2 million barrels.
Metals prices firmed, with gold gaining $7.70 to $676.20 an ounce and silver higher by 17 cents at $14.09 an ounce.
Overseas, London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.3% at 6399, and Frankfurt’s Xetra DAX was adding 0.8% to 6949. Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 0.7% to 17,752. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.4% to 20,210.
No Comments yet
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Economy grows slower than expected in 4Q »WASHINGTON (AP) - The economy grew at a sluggish 2.2 percent pace in the final quarter of last year, the government reported Wednesday in one of the steepest downward revisions in years. In another report, new-home sales plunged in January by the largest amount in 13 years. The pair of reports released Wednesday by the Commerce Department came a day after stocks on Wall Street and around the globe took a nosedive. The new reading on gross domestic product showed the economy in a considerably...
It was a big week for the health care and biotech industries. With a change in power in Congress, the Democrats have launched their “100-hour plan,” which includes a focus on Medicare drug pricing and reversing the ban on stem-cell research. Also, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled a plan for universal health care insurance for the country’s most populous state. On Thursday, a bill to reverse the ban on federal funding on research on new lines of embryonic stem...
eBay Listings That Keep Customers Attracted
February 15, 2007 on 8:53 am | In |
The Tel Aviv 100 index, which tracks the largest companies on Israel’s exchange, crossed the much-anticipated 1000 level for the first time Wednesday, completing a 5.5% climb since the beginning of the year.
Share increases across the board were fueled by a host of bullish corporate and economic news.
Earlier this week, Standard and Poor’s raised its outlook on Israel’s debt from negative to stable based on “improved economic and fiscal resilience to external shocks.” That followed similar upbeat outlooks and credit upgrades by both Fitch and Moody’s.
Also adding to a red-hot trading environment was a note by Morgan Stanley, which said it expects 5% GDP growth in Israel in 2007 and an even higher growth rate in 2008. The estimates top the Bank of Israel’s previous estimate of a 4.5% expansion this year.
On the corporate front, Teva Pharmaceutical’s (TEVA) in-line earnings outlook and solid sales guidance for 2007, along with news reports of a possible acquisition of Israel’s Retalix (RTLX) by VeriFone (PAY) , helped the overall bullishness. Retalix surged 7%.
Still, since positive momentum has been dominating the Tel Aviv indices for a while now, analysts and investors keep asking themselves whether it can continue for much longer. The Tel Aviv 100 index rose by more than 50% in the last two years.
No Comments yet
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Daily Report: Yen Edges Lower on BoJ Speculations but Traders Remain Cautious »Action Insight | Written by ActionForex.com | Jan 17 07 08:11 GMT | Forex Daily Technical Report Yen Edges Lower on BoJ Speculations but Traders Remain Cautious Yen weakens to a new 13 months low against dollar today as Kyodo news agency reported that BoJ will be on hold against this week. But the fall is, so far, mild as traders remains cautious ahead of the announcement tomorrow. Technically speaking, the current rise in USD/JPY towards 121.38 resistance (05 high) is looking out of...