Before the bell: Futures higher ahead of Beige Book, oil supplies

Posted Jun 11th 2008 7:42AM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Before the Bell, Deals, Staples Inc (SPLS), Economic Data, Lehman Br Holdings (LEH), Federal Reserve

U.S. stock futures were higher early Wednesday ahead of the release of the Beige Book on economic conditions and the release of weekly oil inventory supplies that could move oil prices again.

U.S. stocks ended mixed but unchanged much Tuesday following the release of April trade deficit, which widened further and despite crude-oil prices edged lower. Comments from Bernanke on inflation concerned investors. The Dow industrials rose 9 points, or 0.08%, while the S&P 500 fell 3.3 points, or 0.24%, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 10 points, or 0.43%.

Today, the Federal Reserve is scheduled to issue its Beige Book - a survey of regional economic performance - at 2 p.m EDT.
At 10:30 a.m., weekly crude inventories are due out. Oil prices rebounded in electronic trading Wednesday back above $133 a barrel ahead of the report as traders speculate inventories declined and as the dollar weakened.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Juergen Stark, a European Central Bank board member said the ECB will likely not act in a series of interest-rate increases, but rather just raise borrowing costs the one time in July and that's it.

In corporate news, Staple (NASDAQ: SPLS) has finally won its battle to buy Corporate Express (NYSE: CXP) after the Dutch firm agreed to a sweetened bid of $2.65 billion and ended its own deal with Lyreco. The first original offer in February was for 7.25 euros, which was then lifted to 9.15 euros and again to 9.25 euros -- the accepted offer.

Attempting to raise $6 billion in capital, Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) almost struck a deal with Korean financial institutions, including nclude Korea Development Bank and Kookmin Bank, and may yet arrange one by the end of the year, the Financial Times reported. LEH stock seems to be recovering somewhat in premarket trading, up about 1%.

Tags: cxp, featured, leh, spls

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

6-12-2008 @ 11:18AM

Ted McKeown said...

According to a government report announced today "U.S. oil inventories have been falling for weeks as refiners opted to use existing supplies instead of buying new barrels amid the crude market's biggest bull run ever" That means there's an oil shortage in the US. That would make sense because if you stop importing oil then supply goes down. It's not rocket science. My question is why did they pick now to stop importing oil ???? It seems kind of stupid. But wait, maybe they're not so stupid. They must have known that by making that announcement today it would drive prices even higher. Hmmmm... do I smell a rat? No denying. the government deliberately created this shortage of inventory. Why did they cut off our foriegn supply at a critical time when the consumer is worried about gas prices and the economy is unstable. They deliberately jeoprodised future supply of oil by allowing inventory to fall. Then just as it appears the oil bubble is about to burst they make this announcement which drives the price up again. That doesn't sound very responsible. It almost sounds more like market manipulation to me. I admit, I am no expert but if they manipulte the supply then they can manipulate the price too.
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