U.S. stock futures were significantly lower this morning, indicating U.S. stock market could start the day with declines. Following the plummet of global markets, the record high prices for oil with record low dollar, investors seemed nervous when hearing that Carlye fund is close to collapse. If Wall Street got a recent boost from the Federal Reserve's actions to improve liquidity, that too now seems to have a limited impact.U.S. stocks couldn't hold on to Tuesday's rally and dropped on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 46 points, or 0.38%, the S&P 500 lost 11 points, or 0.90%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 11 points, or 0.53%.
Data on several economic indicators will be reported today.
- At 8:30 a.m. EDT, data on weekly jobless claims, February import and export prices and February retail sales will all be released. Retail sales in the U.S. likely cooled in February and increased a paltry 0.2% according to Bloomberg due to rising fuel bills and a slump in hiring, which means claims probably rose. Excluding autos, retails sales are estimates to have risen 0.2% as well. It will also be interesting to see the impact of the dollar on the cost of imported goods. Economists predict a 0.8% rise in February.
- Then, at 10:00 a.m., January business inventories data are due.
Oil prices on Thursday were near an overnight record above $110 a barrel. With the dollar falling below 100 yen for the first time in 12 years and reaching record lows against the euro, it isn't surprising investors are looking for safe havens in commodities. Again worries about a U.S. economic slowdown and expectations for lower U.S. interest rates affected the dollar, which in turn affected oil prices.
These same worries caused world markets to plunge. The Nikkei 225 index tumbled 3.3% to its lowest in 2 1/2 years. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index fell 4.8%. Meanwhile, in Europe, markets are falling some 2%.
Carlyle Capital Corp., the London-based fund that missed margin calls from banks last week, said late Wednesday it expects one of its funds being near collapse and its creditors to seize all of the fund's remaining assets after unsuccessful negotiations to prevent its liquidation. The news only served to dampen investors' sentiment.
It seems, though, that all these market conditions don't affect Electronics Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) and its intentions towars Take Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) as the video game maker said Thursday that it has launched a hostile $2 billion (euro1.3 billion) tender offer for its rival, thus taking the offer directly to Take-Two's shareholders after Take-Two rejected the offer late last month.
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