1 of 3. Specialist trader Michael O’Connor gives a price to traders on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange, April 3, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid
Stock futures signal dip ahead of payrolls
Showing posts with label signal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label signal. Show all posts
Friday, April 5, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Stock index futures signal pause at the open
1 of 2. Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange, March 13, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) – Stock index futures pointed to a flat-to-lower open on Wall Street on Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI set to fall at the start after chalking up a 10-day winning streak.
June futures for the Dow Jones were down 0.1 percent at 05.47 a.m. EDT, while equivalent contracts on the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500 were flat.
March futures and options are due to expire on Friday, which could bring some volatility as some investors rebalance their portfolios.
European shares held near 4-1/2-year highs as growing evidence of a U.S. recovery bolstered investor appetite for riskier assets.
The New York Federal Reserve releases its Empire State Manufacturing Survey for March at 1230. It is expected to rise to 10.00 compared with 10.04 in February.
February’s Consumer Price Index and real earnings are also due to be published at 08.30 a.m. EDT.
Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan release their preliminary March consumer sentiment index at 1355. A reading of 78 is expected, compared with 77.6 in the final February report.
Silver Lake Partners, the technology-focused private equity firm backing a $ 24.4 billion bid to take Dell Inc (DELL.O) private, is close to raising $ 10 billion for its latest fund, exceeding its initial fundraising target on strong investor demand, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Boeing Co (BA.N) expressed confidence on Friday that it could have its grounded 787 Dreamliner jets flying again in a matter of weeks, after it unveiled its proposed fix for the aircraft’s battery system that it says would eliminate the risk of fire.
Samsung Electronics Co (005930.KS) challenged Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on its home turf as the South Korean technology giant premiered its latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S4, which sports a bigger display and unconventional features such as gesture controls.
IBM Corp (IBM.N) and EMC Corp (EMC.N) are among parties in talks to buy privately held database web hosting company SoftLayer Technologies Inc, in a deal that could fetch over $ 2 billion, three sources close to the matter said.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI gained 83.86 points, or 0.58 percent, to 14,539.14 on Thursday, a record closing high. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX rose 8.71 points, or 0.56 percent, to 1,563.23, about 2 points from its record closing high of 1,565.15, set on October 9, 2007.
The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC advanced 13.81 points, or 0.43 percent, to end at 3,258.93.
(Reporting By Francesco Canepa)
- Link this
- Share this
- Digg this
- Reprints
Stock index futures signal pause at the open
Monday, March 11, 2013
Friday, March 8, 2013
Dow record not necessarily a buy signal
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after the closing bell, March 8, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson
NEW YORK |
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Dow’s run to record highs in the stock market’s rally this year may not mean it’s time for investors to go on a buying spree.
Instead, many financial advisers are telling clients to go easy, whether they’re just getting back into stocks or seeking to add to equity positions.
Questions over how much higher the market can go have kept caution in play, with some technical indicators suggesting the market is overbought.
But the case for investing in stocks is strong, they said, particularly given signs of more strength in the economy, especially Friday’s jobs report, which showed a much higher-than-expected 236,000 workers added to the payrolls in February.
“We’re telling clients to take a more defensive approach to the market right now,” said Frank Fantozzi, chief executive of Planned Financial Services, an independent wealth manager in Cleveland.
Yet stocks remain a better choice than other asset classes, he said.
“If I had to pick a category, I’d still be looking at equities,” Fantozzi said. “We still think the market is going to post positive gains for the year.”
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI broke through levels not seen since 2007 and continued to mark new record highs the rest of the week. The Dow is now up 9.9 percent since December 31.
The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 .SPX on Friday ended less than 1 percent away from its record close of 1,565.15, which it reached on October 9, 2007. The S&P 500 is up 8.8 percent since the end of 2012.
Valuations remain relatively attractive. The S&P 500′s forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio, a commonly used measure to value stocks, is at 13.8 percent, still below its historic average P/E of 14.8 percent, based on data going back to 1968, Thomson Reuters data showed.
CAUTION VS APPETITE
Other experts gave similar advice, saying investors should proceed, but with caution.
“We still have some speed bumps ahead of us,” said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon. “We don’t see any urgency to jump in.”
U.S. spending cuts loom as Washington debates the path of fiscal policy, while the euro-zone crisis is far from resolved. U.S. economic growth has also been slow.
Another reason for caution: U.S. earnings growth – one of the biggest drivers of the market – is slowing. Estimates for first-quarter S&P 500 earnings are now at 1.4 percent, down from a 4.3 percent forecast from January 1, Thomson Reuters data showed.
“I try to tell people that although it’s a great run, there will probably be some pullback, and we’ll see it start to taper off into the summer,” said Rodd Newhouse, a Dallas-based financial adviser with Wells Fargo Advisors.
Investor interest in the market is high, analysts have noted.
TD Ameritrade Investor Movement Index, which is designed to measure investor sentiment based on data on positions and trading activity, rose to 5.14 in February from 4.71 in January, and is high relative to historic ranges.
Stock funds attracted $ 7.14 billion in the week ended March 6, data from EPFR Global showed on Friday, well above the previous week’s cash gains of $ 1.2 billion. Appetite for U.S. stocks largely accounted for the inflows.
“Every call that I took this week was (clients asking) ‘Why?’ They want to know why this market is trading here … they want to be involved,” said Leslie Ferrone, an Oak Brook, Illinois-based financial adviser affiliated with Concert Wealth Management.
TIME FOR A BREAK?
Some argue it may be time to take a break from buying.
Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont, said his computer models show the market is “extended,” including regression slopes and other indicators that look at how far the market has come and how fast.
“The key here is just don’t make a big mistake,” Mendelsohn said.
He said he’s been reducing his exposure to stocks in recent weeks, reversing a more bullish stance.
“I’m going to err on the caution side here.”
Other advice on how to manage the current trend is to shop for bargains while selling stocks with sharp gains.
“We’re still riding the wave, but taking profits in some of the higher flyers that have done really well and buying some of the areas that are down for the year and hitting new lows,” said Alan Lancz, president of Alan B. Lancz & Associates Inc., an investment advisory firm in Toledo, Ohio.
“We’re still finding some bargains,” Lancz said.
Fantozzi said he still expects large-cap growth industries to do well, including manufacturing and technology. But he said he would avoid defense companies because of the potential for government spending cuts in that area.
“If there’s a pullback, we’re not looking at a major pullback,” Fantozzi said.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Additional reporting by Ashley Lau; Editing by Jan Paschal)
- Link this
- Share this
- Digg this
- Reprints
Dow record not necessarily a buy signal
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Initial claims data signal labor market gains
A job seeker (R) meets with a prospective employer at a career fair in New York City, October 24, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Mike Segar
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, suggesting a pick-up in the labor market recovery and economic growth.
But the growth outlook was dimmed somewhat by another report on Thursday showing a widening in the trade deficit in January as imports rebounded.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 340,000, declining for a second straight week, the Labor Department said, and confounding economists’ expectations for a rise to 355,000.
The four-week moving average for new claims, a better measure of labor market trends, also fell 7,000 to 348,750 – the lowest level since March 2008 – pointing to some firming in underlying labor market conditions.
“It’s once again supporting the thought that the economic recovery is strengthening,” said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York.
In a separate report, the Commerce Department said the trade gap rose to $ 44.45 billion in January from a shortfall of $ 38.14 billion in December.
U.S. government bond prices fell on the claims data, while the euro climbed to session peaks against the dollar.
A Labor Department analyst said no states had been estimated and there were no special factors influencing the report.
The claims data has no bearing on February’s employment report, due on Friday, as it falls outside the survey period.
According to a Reuters survey of economists, employers probably added 160,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, a small pick-up up from January’s 157,000 count. That would just be enough to hold the jobless rate steady at 7.9 percent.
Economists say job gains of at least 250,000 per month over a sustained period are needed to significantly dent the ranks of the unemployed. Job growth averaged 200,000 in the last three months.
While layoffs have subsided, companies are not in a hurry to step up hiring as domestic demand remains lackluster.
Claims remain tucked in the low end of a 330,000 to 375,000 range for this year.
“The slow, steady improvement in claims is a good reflection of a better business environment,” said Joseph Trevisani, chief market strategist at Worldwidemarkets in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. “It has taken the jobless numbers a very long time to get to the point where historically managers begin to hire.”
A third report showed planned layoffs at U.S. companies rose for the second month in a row in February as the financial sector cut the most employees in over a year.
Employers announced 55,356 planned job cuts last month, up nearly 37 percent from 40,430 in January, according to the report from consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
High unemployment prompted the Federal Reserve last year to launch an open-ended bond buying program. The U.S. central bank said it would keep up the program until there was a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market.
In testimony to Congress last week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled the central bank would press forward with plans to buy $ 85 billion in bonds per month.
The number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid rose 3,000 to 3.1 million in the week ended February 23. The four-week moving average of so-called continuing claims was the lowest since July 2008.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
- Link this
- Share this
- Digg this
- Reprints
Initial claims data signal labor market gains
Monday, March 4, 2013
Telepathic rats communicate via computer
A lab at Duke University has taken us one step closer to mind-melding, using rats. Researchers trained a rat in Brazil to earn a reward. Next they attached that rat’s brain to another rat in at Duke University through the always versatile Internet. The rat at Duke knew what to do with no training.
“The rat in North Carolina wasn’t reading the mind of the rat in Brazil, it was more of a binary signal,” says Slate Tech blogger Will Oremus. “So if the rat in Brazil pressed the lever on the right, a certain type of electrical signal would be sent to the brain of the rat in North Carolina and it learned to interpret that signal.”
While we may still be a long way off from mind reading, the ability to send a simple signal from one brain to another brain, or from a brain to a computer is now here and could have vast applications for the medical field as well as other industries.
For example, last December a lab in Pittsburg helped a paralyzed woman feed herself chocolate with a robotic arm using similar technology, according to Oremus.
To hear more about the brain to computer communication, click on the audio player above.
Telepathic rats communicate via computer
Friday, February 22, 2013
Dr. Copper Sends A Deja Vu Warning Signal
While the world’s attention has been focused on a precious metals’ slide and a ‘dire’ 2% correction in stocks, another metal has been sending some ominous signals. So-called Dr. Copper is down 5.5% this week dragging it to negative for the year and highly suggestive (see 2011 and 2012 charts below) of a pending slide in US equities.
The reason for stocks to extend their losses, we believe, comes back to the little known fact that China is the marginal inflation center of the world. When global inflation gets too hot, it will tend to hit China first/hardest given its high food-weighting and energy demand; China then, subtley mind you, complains to the Big-5 Central Banks and an implicit tightening occurs – which then fades global stocks as the liquidity pump dries up.
As we noted recently, the Chinese never had a strong equity tradition and instead the trillions in deposits ($ 14 trillion last) is mostly going to fund loans used to buy homes (and marginally away from gold). However, the PBoC is clearly nervous and took matters into their own hands – with the largest liquidity withdrawal (tightening) on record in the last week (net repo redemptions). Perhaps, as we have seen again and again, with liquidity all there is left to create ‘growth’, Dr. Copper’s credentials are worth paying attention to.
Longer-term, Copper vs Gold (perhaps – growth vs fiat) points to a different picture for stocks…
But in the short-term, we have seen this picture of Copper and Chinese stocks leading US equities into a downturn twice before since the 2009 lows… and each time, US equities caught down soon after…
But the reason appears to be China’s clear signal to the world that it won’t stand idly by and enable inflation importation – whether for fear of an ‘arab spring’ like reaction or more simply a bubble-popping need to slow things down… It appears for now, China has taken that latter route with the largest ‘net’ liquidity withdrawal on record of CNY910bn this week or around USD150bn – as seen in the lower two panes of the chart below…
It would appear, just as when inflation reared its head last year, tightening has taken place with the massive easing before hand flowing from stocks and gold (blue and yellow in the chart above) at the margin to real estate… last year this marked the bottom in gold as inflation fears sent the marginal Chinese buyer back into the precious metal – and the levels are around the same this time also.
Charts: Bloomberg
 |  |
Dr. Copper Sends A Deja Vu Warning Signal
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
VIDEO: UK economy receives bad signal from 4G auction
The auction of 4G mobile spectrum failed to meet government forecasts, spelling more bad news for Britain’s economy as sterling hit a 16-month low. Ivor Bennett reports.
Thanks for checking us out. Please take a look at the rest of our videos and articles.
To stay in the loop, bookmark our homepage.
VIDEO: UK economy receives bad signal from 4G auction
VIDEO: UK economy receives bad signal from 4G auction
The auction of 4G mobile spectrum failed to meet government forecasts, spelling more bad news for Britain’s economy as sterling hit a 16-month low. Ivor Bennett reports.
Thanks for checking us out. Please take a look at the rest of our videos and articles.
To stay in the loop, bookmark our homepage.
VIDEO: UK economy receives bad signal from 4G auction
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Some Treasury Yield Context
Before everyone gets too excited about the “great rotation” that still remains a ghost, keep in mind that the entire curve is still >1 standard deviation below its historical mean (from 1990 in this case).
There is a long way to go before any meaningful rotation actually takes place, and even if the fed continues to monetize, we should at least see a mean reversion before getting too excited.
Also, keep an eye on the 10s30s, this may be a subtle inflation smoke signal, even as the fed has tried to grind yields lower & lower.
 |  |
Some Treasury Yield Context
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)