Early morning futures are negative, pointing to a lower start stocks.
The market is possibly reacting to two things, the first being the sell-off that started around noon Friday, and the other is the sell-off in overseas markets. Update: oil prices are lower and futures may be changing the negative trend, although they are still negative at 8:15 a.m..
On Friday, data concerning the health of the economy in the form of Gross Domestic Product was reported, showing a lower growth than anticipated. Despite the concern about the economy'd growth slowing down, the market braved the news until at noon the sell-off began. This could have also been triggered by a Goldman Sachs report about lower demand for PC boards in China in the coming year. This report sparked the sell-off in the tech, and then possibly expanded to the whole market.
Today, major stock markets in Asia closed lower, with Japan's Nikkei 225 down nearly 2% . European markets are also negative with the German DAX 30 declining 0.7%. as is the FTSE 100 in London.
This morning, September personal income and spending will be reported at 8:30 a.m.. Analysts forecast both to grow at 0.3%. A measure of inflation, core PCE price index will also be reported, although may not have the same weight as other inflation measures.
Topping the news this morning are Wal-Mart, Verizon (both are Dow components), American Power Conversion and Yahoo!:
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) reported a pallid 0.5% increase October sales, the smallest gain in six years. Wal-Mart shares were down 1.7% in Frankfurt this morning.
Yahoo!, Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral by Merrill Lynch, which calls the present stock price an attractive entry point. Yahoo! shares were up 1.4% in Frankfurt.
Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VZ) just reported third-quarter financial results. Earnings (non-GAAP) were $2.0 billion, or 68 cents per share, a 7.5% increase over last year's Q3 earnings of $1.8 billion, or 66 cents per share. Analysts were expecting flat earnings.
Finally, French electric equipment maker Schneider Electric SA had agreed to buy American Power Conversion Corp. (NASDAQ:APCC) for $6.1 billion in cash. According to Schneider, the $31 per share offer, which represents a 30% premium over APC's Friday closing price, has been approved by the APC board.
Other stories:
A Goldman Sachs report from Friday suggesting that shipments of the main circuit boards for personal computers will be weaker than expected this year, could be indicating a sector weakness. Already on Friday the report sent computer makers Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) stocks down 1.8% and 1.1% respectively. Chip makers, Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) stocks dropped around 3%. The report could also impact Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares as many awaited its new operating system, Vista.
An article in TheStreet.com examines the recent rallies of Yahoo!, eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), suggesting they are riding the positive sentiment from Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG).
In the auto industry, two more foreign automakers would shortly announce their plans to produce cars in Russia. General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM) and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) are already producing there, and Toyota Motor Corp. (ADR) (NYSE:TM) will start shortly.
Norway's Statoil and its partners Norsk Hydro and ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) have awarded contracts worth about 700 million Norwegian crowns ($107 million) for gas turbine maintenance to General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) and a unit of German engine group MTU.
Time Warner, Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX) Warner Bros, Martin Scorsese's mob tale "The Departed" held strongly again, taking in $9.8 million to place second for the third-straight weekend. The Warner Bros. film lifted its total to $91.1 million. In first place was Liongate's "Saw III."
Finally, the Blogging Stocks team reported some interesting stories on Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) over the weekend.
Struggling Playboy outsources business ops
J. Crew earnings preview: A strong Q3 all buttoned up?
Twitter to make acquisitions, generate revenue in 2010
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-30-2006 @ 11:26AM
reinharden said...
It smacks of fishing for clicks when you claim to have interesting stories about Apple over the weekend when only one story about Apple was posted over the weekend. Singular not plural.
Unless you really want to count another fishing for click incident whose entire mention of Apple was a one-line saying consumers by Apple (AAPL) iPods.
Pretty pathetic really.
At the very least you should have mentioned that consumers buy Apple's (AAPL) iPods at Apple's (AAPL) online store, Amazon (AMZN), Wal-Mart (WMT), and Best Buy (BBY) and that, as yet, they weren't buying Microsoft's (MSFT) Zune or SanDisk's (SNDK) players.
If we're going to be ridiculously obvious in our fishing, why not go all the way?
reinharden