| US futures decline on Amazon, Merrill
US stock futures fell today as Merrill Lynch reported its first quarterly net loss in nearly six years and as earnings by Amazon disappointed some investors. The world's largest brokerage reported write-downs of $7.9 billion from leveraged loans from corporate takeovers and bad bets on mortgage securities. It had a net loss of $2.3 billion. Merrill's shares fell 1.1 per cent to $66.40 before the open. "I don't think the Merrill's number going to do too much even, though it's a significantly larger write-off," Owen Fitzpatrick, head of US Equity Group at Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management, in New York, said."This is a sector that has been reporting some pretty poor numbers, so this isn't too big of a surprise." S&P 500 futures were down 8.10 points and below fair value, a mathematical formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract.
Nevada: Best and worst place to live
Economic development officials are very aggressively working to encourage businesses to relocate to Nevada," said Karen Kerrigan, CEO and president of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C. "Economic development officials are very aggressively working to encourage businesses to relocate to Nevada. (But) Nevada may face problems accommodating its growing population, especially given the increasing scarcity of water and other resources."
environment
The best and worst environmental work are also exemplified in Nevada:
First the good: In 2007, Nevada was recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its work making enforcement of the Clean Air Act a "top priority."
"(Nevada took) legal action against two Las Vegas-area power plants for air emissions violations," an EPA report released in October said.
Aluminium gains, agris spike, crude witnesses profit-taking
MUMBAI: The commodity markets were volatile last week as the surprise Fed move on interest rates caused short-term turbulence. The immediate reaction was a short-term upmove on select base metals as the industrial outlook (at least as a perception) improved and shorts were squeezed. The bullion outlook, too, improved as hedge fund activity was seen driving prices higher. Select agri-commodities spiked higher and the outlook was slightly more upbeat compared with the previous week. MCX volumes fell 2% and open interest tripped by a similar amount on a week-on-week basis. Turnover gainers were copper, mentha oil, potato, zinc and aluminium. Open interest gainers were natural gas, zinc, refined soya oil and chana. Agri-commodities
Chana has established Rs 2,100 level as a critical support and as long as this threshold is not violated downwards, the outlook remains optimistic.
No more weekends off: P’s & C’s reporting
The great L.A. Times scribe Jim Murray once said, "Spring is the time of year when the ground thaws, trees bud, the income tax falls due — and everybody wins the pennant." And so it is that your correspondent, memorably dubbed as the faux "crusading everyman" by one of our angrier blog participants, has already done his taxes, an annual end-of-January ritual before heading to spring training and being immersed in a six-week world where normal life is put on hold and baseball takes precedence over all else. We'll be headed down Wednesday, a day before pitchers and catchers are officially required to report. Need some time to stock the fridge of the rental house and get a lay of the land in our new neighborhood, plus stop by the ballpark at Dark Star to see how many eager Braves arrived early.
£20m splashed out in cricket auction
Strange, too, that a cricketer who only a month ago was a hate figure in India after alleging that he had been racially abused should be offered more than £100,000 a week to play in Hyderabad. Full story...
Source: Timesonline.co.uk .
ASX chief warns of more turmoil
ASX chief executive Robert Elstone has warned shareholders to prepare for a fourth wave of stock market turbulence because of credit downgrades to "monoline" bond insurers in the US. In a rare statement from the manager of a stock exchange, he said yesterday it was "almost impossible" to think that there would not be more share market turbulence ahead. He noted there had been three recent share market lurches, starting in August with the sub-prime meltdown. "Then there was the real credit crunch in early December and the sell-off from January 8 through to 19," he said. "There is a lot of speculation now around the monoline insurers," he told The Australian. Such insurers, mostly based in the US, "rent" their triple-A status to bond issuers to reduce the latter's interest costs but a recent rash of downgradings by ratings agencies has left many institutions owning bonds that are now rated lower than their mandates allow.
Earnings roundup: Campbell, Hormel
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) _ The Campbell Soup Co. said Friday its second-quarter profit slipped 3.9 percent as increases in the cost of commodities and energy and higher promotional spending offset a strong sales increase. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ Hormel Foods Corp. said strong sales of Spam and a recovery in its turkey business boosted first-quarter earnings by 17 percent. Other stories: DULUTH, Minn. (AP) _ Allete Inc.'s profit slipped 2 percent in the fourth quarter as flagging property values in Florida dragged the value of the power company's real estate, the company said Friday. NEW YORK (AP) _ Greek drybulk shipper Diana Shipping Inc. said Friday its fourth-quarter earnings surged 87 percent on higher charter rates and an expanded fleet, but the results still narrowly missed Wall Street's expectations.
Traders left to search for signs of capitulation
World markets are running out of superlatives. Tuesday saw the biggest cut by the Federal Reserve to its target Fed Funds rate in 26 years, and the biggest emergency cut it had ever made between scheduled meetings. That followed the biggest falls in European and Asian markets since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which occurred amid the highest levels of equity market volatility since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. .
Australian stock market closes down on global credit concerns
DESPITE a strong lead from Wall Street and higher commodity prices, the share market closed in negative territory, reversing earlier intraday gains, on cautiousness about global investments markets. At the 4.15pm AEDT close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 20 points, or 0.33 per cent, to 5960, and the All Ordinaries had shed 21.1 points, or 0.35 per cent, to 6019.8. On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the March share price index was down 15 points to 5951 on a volume of 27,555 contracts. ABN Amro Morgans Ipswich manager Tony Russell said nervousness ruled the local market today. "The market is very jittery, we've been swinging from positive to negative.'' Mr Russell said Australian investors were cautious about the earnings results coming from the United States. "We'll see some of the major financial institutions reporting in the US tonight, so the market might be waiting to see what happens there.'' Mr Russell said trading conditions were thin, with many investors still on holiday.
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