GE (GE) Panic selling over concerns about balance sheet of financial division. Drops to $5.73 from 52-week high of $38.52.
Citigroup (C) Worries about nationalization persist. Down to $1.11 from 52-week high of $27.35.
Schwab (SCHW) Brokerage business being hit by market. Sells of to $11.63 from 52-week high of $26.20.
MGM Mirage (MGM) Concerns about bond default. Plunges to $1.89 from 52-week high of $64.85.
Douglas A. McIntyre
The Federal Reserve has issued its latest Beige Book ahead of the next FOMC meeting. It shows more pain and more suffering ahed, just like the rest of the economic data we have seen. The report puts the likelihood of any near-term recovery as very low. Only two of twelve districts did not see significant deterioration. Significant recovery is not expected until late 2009 or into 2010.
Consumer spending remains slow and there is an exceptionally sluggish auto market. Housing price decreases have not slowed with many markets continuing to see double-digit drops. Mortgage demand is depressed and consumer lending is down while unemployment is up and wage pressure is muted. The weakness is being seen even in health care now. Spending is lower in restaurants, entertainment, travel and retail businesses. There is more data we could lump in here, but we will spare you the blow by blow recession. It is becoming too easy to see depression in this recession.
There is one way to think of this positively. You have to print out your charts and turn them upside down. It will look like a huge move up that way.
Jon C. Ogg
March 4, 2009
According to the new 24/7 Wall St–Channel Checkers Survey of 30 Game Stop (GME) and EB Games locations, Sony (SNE) PS3 sales are better relative to Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox and Nintendo Wii than they have been at any time in the last year. Read More
As long as silicon chips continue to pack more power into less space, the industry will need improved inspection devices to assist with quality control. Or at least that’s what KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ:KLAC) is counting on. And now it appears that KLA expects solar and photovoltaic to be a new engine of growth.
Read More
A very large number of people must think they know something about GE (GE) that is not public. Rumors about the company’s financial unit balance sheet have been hurting the stock for weeks.
This morning, GE hit a 52-week low at $6.31 and has been trading down as much as 9% on tremendous volume 72 million shares at 9.47 AM. Later, GE issued a statement denying that it needed to raise capital.
The stock, which traded below $6 for the first time since 1991, has not recovered.
Douglas A. McIntyre
A little good news for AT&T (T) today. JPMorgan has added the stock to its analyst focus list and rates it “overweight”.
The firm commented: “We are adding AT&T to our Analyst Focus List as we expect the wireline business to perform better than very conservative expectations in 2009. In addition, we are more optimistic on AT&T’s wireless opportunity given better than expected wireless ARPU and margin trends in the quarter.”. Read More
Depsite last night’s third quarter warning, Piper Jaffray is upgrading shares of Palm (Nasdaq: PALM) today from Neutral to Buy and lifting its price target from $4 to $10. Piper is citing one thing – “the Pre”.
The firm said that while the results and cash burn were below expectations, their checks indicate growing carrier interest for the Palm Pre.
Oil industry information leader Platts has proposed establishing a new assessment for sour crude produced in North and South America. The benchmark would be called the Americas Sour Marker (ASM), and includes four sour crudes that Platts already assesses. While ASM is not intended to replace West Texas Intermediate (WTI) as the benchmark price for Americas crude oil, Platts is clearly signaling its intention to minimize the influence of WTI in its assessment processes.
Read More
We have two entirely different reports this morning in the big box retail sector, and a wild card underdog winner. BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc. (NYSE: BJ) reported better-than-expected results, while Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) did not. The good news is some of the bad news was anticipated. Big Lots Inc. (NYSE: BIG) may be a wild card.
Read More
The offer from NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NRG) to buy the retail business of Reliant Energy Inc. (NYSE:RRI) for $287.5 million has now drawn some attention from Fitch Ratings. As one might expect, the benefits to Reliant outweigh the benefits to NRG, at least that’s what Fitch thinks.
Read More
VeriFone Holdings Inc. (NYSE: PAY) is finally getting a look from traders this morning after the company’s earnings report. The earnings were not without problems, and the guidance was not something many would deem as a point of beauty.
But VeriFone may finally be deemed safe after more than a year’s worth of major problems at the payment processing company. After a 90% drop over the last two years and with its house mostly in order, it looks like traders are starting to nibble here.
These are the top 10 analyst calls we have seen this Wednesday morning with about two hours until the market opens:
JON C. OGG
March 4, 2009
News that a measure of manufacturing activity in China took a tick up in February put analysts into a fever of excitement. The Shanghai Composite moved up 6%.
The rally is based on a mirage. China’s economy cannot grow at any significant rate without the US, Japan, UK, and EU consumers returning to the marketplace. Read More
It is probably a pretty fair guess that Google (GOOG) will have a poor quarter and that the stock is heading for new lows.
Eric Schmidt, the search company’s CEO, made downbeat comments about the economy at a conference yesterday. Read More
The Apple (AAPL) iPhone may be good for a lot of things, but reading electronic books is not one of them. The screen on the device is so small that trying to read “War and Peace” would make most people over 30 go blind.
That is not stopping Amazon (AMZN) from marketing its ebooks on the Apple handset. Read More
The Wall Street Journal decided to give Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America (BAC) a hard time for paying some of its investment bankers and traders more than $10 million each last year. Read More
Using the US government’s count, about 2.4 million people lost their jobs in America last year. That does not include people who have been jobless for an extended period and are no longer looking for jobs. In January, another 598,000 people were put onto the streets by their employers, moving the unemployment rate up to 7.6%. Read More
Hyundai is now the most successful car company in the US and it has the numbers to prove it. It has come up with a way to sell cars to people who fear that they will be homeless and it works.
Most large car companies posted more significant unit sales drops in February than analysts expected. GM (GM) only sold 268,737 light vehicles. Three years ago, that would have been its take for the July 4th “cash back” weekend. Ford (F) moved 96,044 units, off 48% from the same month last year. As usual, the Ford PR department did what it could to misdirect and dissemble. Early in its statement about last month’s sales, Ford pressed the case for how fabulous its new products are. The most important announcement the company thought it was making was that Ford will introduce the new Fusion model during “American Idol.” It tells Ford’s shareholders how out of touch the company’s CEO Alan Mulally is. He can be forgiven. He used to work for Boeing (BA). Read More
According to Reuters, Obama spoke about the economy with optimism as his aides defended the budget.
Reuters reports that a Senate panel will question Swiss banking’s secrecy policy.
Reuters reports that foreclosures drove up the 2008 US home sales index.
Reuters reports that Bernanke had no choice other than to help AIG (AIG). Read More
Markets in Asia were higher
The Nikkei rose .9% to 7,291.
The Hang Seng gained 2.8% to 12,375.
The Shanghai Composite was up 6.1% to 2,198
At the open in Europe, the FTSE rose 1.3%. The Dax was up .9% to 3,724. The CAC 40 rose 1.4% to 2,592.
Data from Reuters and MarketWatch.
Douglas A. McIntyre
| Today’s top tickerspy Indexes | |
| Domestic Telecom ... | +2.6% |
| Stem Cell Stocks | +2.3% |
| Pain Management S... | +2.1% |
| Ethanol and Biofu... | +1.9% |
| Savings and Loan ... | +1.8% |
 | |
| |
RSS Updates
Email Updates
