Savings Experiment: Snow Removal
The Money Man Behind Rick Santorum: Who Is Foster S. Friess?
Analysts have been telling investors the past few days to fasten their seatbelt because we're headed for more upturns and downturns in the market as the economy is getting bumpy. Seems they weren't wrong, but I guess anyone following the market recently had already known that. After a day where blue chip stocks (Dow) declined 1.3% and tech stocks (Nasdaq) dropped 2.3%, stock futures this Tuesday morning suggest a sharply higher open. The reason could be that central banks around the world have opened their coffers to tackled the credit crunch. Today, investors will look to more housing data and earnings from Goldman Sachs.
At 8:30 a.m. EST, an hour before the opening bell, the Department of Commerce will report November housing starts and building permits. As has recently been the case, no good news is expected to come from this sector. Economists are expecting housing starts to fall yet again to 1.175 million units in November from 1.229 million units in October. As MarketWatch claims, these are levels of about 50% from the peak. Similarly, building permits are expected to have declined last month. Even so, economists don't see the sector reaching a trough yet, expecting more declines.
As the housing data comes in, investors will also await to hear from the Federal Reserve and its plan to give home mortgage borrowers new protections against shady lending practices.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the European Central Bank continues its bid to alleviate the global credit crunch, offering $501 billion (€348 billion) to banks in short-term funding. The Bank of England too has offered $23 billion to lenders as part of the joint effort taken last week by the four central banks to alleviate the ongoing credit crisis.
This caused a recovery in European stock markets. Asian markets closed mixed.
Investors will also be looking at several companies reporting earnings today, most notably is Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS). Goldman, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, made nearly $4 billion from betting on a subprime downturn. No doubt, the bank has fared much better than its rivals in this mortgage crisis. Goldman stock is already up 2% in premarket trading.
Other companies reporting: Hovnanian Enterprises (NYSE: HOV), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI) and Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM).
After the bell Monday, Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE) posted better-than-expected results, announcing its plan for additional product releases and the completion of an aggressive stock buyback program. Deutsche Bank upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold.
Goldman Earnings Sink After Buffett Dividend
Johnson & Johnson's Income Falls 23%
Burberry Shares Leap on Sales Update
