Look for any piece of news that smacks of an improving economy to send stocks falling next week, warns CNBC's Jim Cramer. Why? Big money investors will interpret any positive economic signs as a signal that the Fed is about to pull back economic stimulus rather than risk runaway inflation. Still, he says, there may be opportunities in the pullback, particularly in the bank, tech and industrial spaces. Just says away from anything with a higher yield, like utilities and MLP's. [View news story]
Cramer might be right about the market but the failed inflation argument is getting old. There won't be inflation unless consumers get more money, wage/price spiral. The Fed has already given definite and clear conditions for tapering. Oh well, the market has to trade on something, rational or not. Never let the facts get in the way of a good theory.
In its final written submission to a Canadian review board, British Columbia says it can't support Enbridge's (ENB) proposed $6B Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to its coast that would allow tankers to export oil to Asia. The province says ENB hasn't presented any real assurance it would be able to meet its commitments to oil spill prevention. [View news story]
A new Harvard study shows that immigrants may not be as big a burden on the healthcare system as critics claim. Immigrants to the U.S., particularly those without citizenship, contributed $115.2B more to the Medicare Trust Fund during the past decade than they withdrew. The study looked at data from 2002 to 2009, showing for example that in 2009 alone, American-born citizens took $30.9B out of Medicare, while immigrants provided a surplus of $13.8B. The study concluded that policies which restrict immigration may in fact deplete Medicare’s financial resources. [View news story]
It's the insurance companies, the drug companies, physician owned clinics, fraudsters and everyone else trying to get rich from people's illnesses that have ruined healthcare in this country.
Global server sales fell 5% Y/Y in Q1, says Gartner. That's a reversal from Q4's 5% growth, and evidence of both weak IT spending and a shift towards cheaper hardware. #1 IBM, whose hardware unit had an ugly Q1, saw its revenue share fall 250 bps Y/Y to 25.5%. #2 H-P (HPQ), hurt by crumbling Itanium server demand, saw its share fall 280 bps to 25%, and #5 Oracle (ORCL), hit hard by plunging UNIX server sales, saw a 130 bps drop to 4.6%. But #3 Dell's (DELL) share rose 310 bps to 18%, and Cisco (CSCO) cracked the unit share top-5 at 2.3%. The buying habits of Internet companies led non-top-5 vendors to make up 22% of sales, up 370 bps. Sales of x86 servers (mostly INTC-based) grew 1.8%, down from Q4's 6.6%. (IDC's Q4 data) [View news story]
Shipments down .7%, revenue down 5%. cheap off the shelf servers. FB and AMZN proved you don't need specialized units. It's a tough business now. ORCL getting killed. we'll see how HP's ARM based Moonshot servers do.
Primerica (PRI, +2.83%) had a good first day of its official "post-IPO" life, having agreed last night to buy out the remaining shares and warrants owned by Warburg Pincus . Warburg is selling back 2.49 million shares for $86.28 million. Primerica stock has appreciated 50% since its April 2010 IPO. [View news story]
NV Energy (NVE) +22.4% AH after agreeing to be acquired by Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) subsidiary MidAmerican Energy for $23.75/share, a 23.2% premium to today's closing price. Upon completion of the deal, MidAmerican will have assets of ~$66B and its regulated electric and gas utilities will serve 8.4M customers. [View news story]
BAML analysts lower their expectations for Brent crude prices on weakening demand in China and Europe, rising supplies and higher inventories - "a cocktail for lower prices." But demand this summer should rise, prompting the firm to suggest a list of six "stocks for the summer" to own: APC, OXY, MRO, PXD, DVN, CHK. [View news story]
I have lower expectations for Brent pricing due to a price fixing investigation by the EU.
Rail is no longer seen as just a stopgap for transporting oil until pipelines are built. Case in point: Kinder Morgan Partners' (KMP) proposed 277K bbl/day Freedom pipeline would be the first to bring light, sweet oil from Texas' Permian Basin to California, but refiners Valero (VLO), Tesoro (TSO) and Phillips 66 (PSX) won't sign contracts to use Freedom, preferring the flexibility of rail cars and barges. [View news story]
With the North Dakota oil selling at a discount to Permian, a pipe from the Permian doesn't work out to be less expensive than rail from North Dakota and there's no 20 year contract with rail.
The U.S. State Department takes the unusual step of releasing publicly the feedback it received about the controversial Keystone XL pipeline (TRP) in response to its draft environmental report. Well represented in the first batch of ~1.2M total comments are green groups like Tar Sands Action and the Sierra Club as well as advocacy groups like Americans for Tax Reform and the Institute for Energy Research. [View news story]
The public is going to read 1.2 million comments? Just make a decision, right or wrong. That's what elected officials are there for, to make decisions.
The NYSE rules to let stand all trades in American Electric Power (AEP -1%) and NextEra Energy (NEE -1.2%) but prices for certain "aberrant" trades will be excluded from the high and low prices in data feeds. There were hundreds of trades early this morning in AEP at or below $46.03 and in NEE at or below $76.19, more than 50% below yesterday's closing prices. [View news story]
They should just hang out a sign that says "individual investors not welcome."
Trading is temporarily halted in NextEra Energy (NEE) and American Electric Power (AEP) after early trades printed as low as $30.37 and $22.28, respectively. Yesterday's respective closing prices were $79.16 and $48.59. [View news story]
NYSE rules the trades in AEP and NEE will stand. Why don't they just pit out a statement that the public participation in the markets is unwelcome.
Market recap: It was quite a day for the tea-leaf readers. Stocks spiked early on release of Bernanke’s prepared testimony, then began to fade as he seemed to break with the dovish tone during his Q&A, and then turned red as the Fed meeting minutes indicated a bit of a dilemma over when to taper. Gold futures, up more than 1% early, finished negative. The dollar rallied; Treasurys fell, lifting 10-year yields to 2%. [View news story]
So they buy a bit fewer mortgage backed securities, so what?
More from Bernanke: "Another cost, one that we take very seriously, is the possibility that very low interest rates, if maintained too long, could undermine financial stability ... (however) a premature tightening of monetary policy could lead interest rates to rise temporarily but would also carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery." Questioning is about to begin. S&P 500 +0.9%. [View news story]
Hitesh, if you want to see a recovery, go to Houston or Dallas. Nothing but construction cranes. All along the Gulf Coast for that matter.
Look for any piece of news that smacks of an improving economy to send stocks falling next week, warns CNBC's Jim Cramer. Why? Big money investors will interpret any positive economic signs as a signal that the Fed is about to pull back economic stimulus rather than risk runaway inflation. Still, he says, there may be opportunities in the pullback, particularly in the bank, tech and industrial spaces. Just says away from anything with a higher yield, like utilities and MLP's. [View news story]
Renewed worries over cash flow? MLP liquidation pressure? There's no apparent news behind today's weakness in Linn Energy (LINE -3.5%), LinnCo (LNCO -3.7%) and Berry Petroleum (BRY -2.8%). LINE and LNCO plan to acquire BRY for $4.3B, the first-ever acquisition of a public C-Corp by an upstream LLC or MLP. [View news story]
In its final written submission to a Canadian review board, British Columbia says it can't support Enbridge's (ENB) proposed $6B Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to its coast that would allow tankers to export oil to Asia. The province says ENB hasn't presented any real assurance it would be able to meet its commitments to oil spill prevention. [View news story]
A new Harvard study shows that immigrants may not be as big a burden on the healthcare system as critics claim. Immigrants to the U.S., particularly those without citizenship, contributed $115.2B more to the Medicare Trust Fund during the past decade than they withdrew. The study looked at data from 2002 to 2009, showing for example that in 2009 alone, American-born citizens took $30.9B out of Medicare, while immigrants provided a surplus of $13.8B. The study concluded that policies which restrict immigration may in fact deplete Medicare’s financial resources. [View news story]
Global server sales fell 5% Y/Y in Q1, says Gartner. That's a reversal from Q4's 5% growth, and evidence of both weak IT spending and a shift towards cheaper hardware. #1 IBM, whose hardware unit had an ugly Q1, saw its revenue share fall 250 bps Y/Y to 25.5%. #2 H-P (HPQ), hurt by crumbling Itanium server demand, saw its share fall 280 bps to 25%, and #5 Oracle (ORCL), hit hard by plunging UNIX server sales, saw a 130 bps drop to 4.6%. But #3 Dell's (DELL) share rose 310 bps to 18%, and Cisco (CSCO) cracked the unit share top-5 at 2.3%. The buying habits of Internet companies led non-top-5 vendors to make up 22% of sales, up 370 bps. Sales of x86 servers (mostly INTC-based) grew 1.8%, down from Q4's 6.6%. (IDC's Q4 data) [View news story]
Primerica (PRI, +2.83%) had a good first day of its official "post-IPO" life, having agreed last night to buy out the remaining shares and warrants owned by Warburg Pincus . Warburg is selling back 2.49 million shares for $86.28 million. Primerica stock has appreciated 50% since its April 2010 IPO. [View news story]
NV Energy (NVE) +22.4% AH after agreeing to be acquired by Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) subsidiary MidAmerican Energy for $23.75/share, a 23.2% premium to today's closing price. Upon completion of the deal, MidAmerican will have assets of ~$66B and its regulated electric and gas utilities will serve 8.4M customers. [View news story]
BAML analysts lower their expectations for Brent crude prices on weakening demand in China and Europe, rising supplies and higher inventories - "a cocktail for lower prices." But demand this summer should rise, prompting the firm to suggest a list of six "stocks for the summer" to own: APC, OXY, MRO, PXD, DVN, CHK. [View news story]
Rail is no longer seen as just a stopgap for transporting oil until pipelines are built. Case in point: Kinder Morgan Partners' (KMP) proposed 277K bbl/day Freedom pipeline would be the first to bring light, sweet oil from Texas' Permian Basin to California, but refiners Valero (VLO), Tesoro (TSO) and Phillips 66 (PSX) won't sign contracts to use Freedom, preferring the flexibility of rail cars and barges. [View news story]
The U.S. State Department takes the unusual step of releasing publicly the feedback it received about the controversial Keystone XL pipeline (TRP) in response to its draft environmental report. Well represented in the first batch of ~1.2M total comments are green groups like Tar Sands Action and the Sierra Club as well as advocacy groups like Americans for Tax Reform and the Institute for Energy Research. [View news story]
Market recap: Buy-the-dip remains the overriding psychology of this momentum market, as stocks mostly overcame a morning swoon fed by fears the Fed would take away the punchbowl, plus the Nikkei's 7.3% plunge and weak manufacturing data from China. Once positive economic news came in (I, II) and the Fed's Williams and Bullard offered dovish remarks, investors decided to buy instead of run for cover. The dollar dropped as the yen soared, while gold jumped 1.8%. [View news story]
The NYSE rules to let stand all trades in American Electric Power (AEP -1%) and NextEra Energy (NEE -1.2%) but prices for certain "aberrant" trades will be excluded from the high and low prices in data feeds. There were hundreds of trades early this morning in AEP at or below $46.03 and in NEE at or below $76.19, more than 50% below yesterday's closing prices. [View news story]
Trading is temporarily halted in NextEra Energy (NEE) and American Electric Power (AEP) after early trades printed as low as $30.37 and $22.28, respectively. Yesterday's respective closing prices were $79.16 and $48.59. [View news story]
Market recap: It was quite a day for the tea-leaf readers. Stocks spiked early on release of Bernanke’s prepared testimony, then began to fade as he seemed to break with the dovish tone during his Q&A, and then turned red as the Fed meeting minutes indicated a bit of a dilemma over when to taper. Gold futures, up more than 1% early, finished negative. The dollar rallied; Treasurys fell, lifting 10-year yields to 2%. [View news story]
More from Bernanke: "Another cost, one that we take very seriously, is the possibility that very low interest rates, if maintained too long, could undermine financial stability ... (however) a premature tightening of monetary policy could lead interest rates to rise temporarily but would also carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery." Questioning is about to begin. S&P 500 +0.9%. [View news story]