Watching the ebb and flow of weekly jobless claims offers a high-altitude, fairly antiseptic view of what’s happening with layoffs nationally, but if you want to get a little dirt under your fingernails, go browse through state WARN notices.
WARN is short for Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, set up to give workers and unemployment agencies early warning of business closings and layoffs. The act requires notice (timing varies between states) prior to plant closings, mass layoffs, relocations or in some cases reduced work hours. East Shore Partners’ market strategist Joan McCullough wrote about the these notices (available on states’ department of labor websites) a couple months ago, and since then we’ve been keeping a casual eye on New Jersey and New York.
The national seasonally adjusted weekly claims data have improved, which is naturally welcome, and WARN notices don’t necessarily contradict that trend. But they do offer a more ground-level view of the layoff picture, particularly when you read names of places you might recognize and the number of workers being affected. Continue reading…
US stocks wipe away much of Friday’s losses as everything seems to fall the bulls’ way.
Rising consumer spending and increasing auto sales as well as manufacturing activity hitting its highest level since July 2004 boosts sentiment. The market, which loves M&A, got a big, headline making deal with United and Continental. And what finally seems like a resolution to Greece’s debt woes contributed to the run-up.
Consumer discretionaries among the market’s biggest gainers as the consumer is slowly returning to pre-recession habits. Consumers increased their spending and cut their savings in March, not a good sign for the long-term economy but a positive development for these stocks in the short-term.
DJIA closes up 143, or 1.3%, to 11152, marking its biggest gain since Feb. 16 and fourth largest gain of the year. The index recaptured roughly 90% of Friday’s 159-point drop. Still, this marked the fourth triple-digit move out of the last six sessions, and that kind of volatility doesn’t exactly speak to overriding confidence.
Dow components Caterpillar and Boeing each rise 2.7% and contribute to about 20% of the index’s overall gain. The floats of those two stocks are among the smallest of the 30 in the average, so when the momentum gets cooking, as it did today, it’s easier to see a more pronounced increase (or decrease) in the dollar-value change in those stock prices.
S&P rises 16 to 1202, crossing back above the key 1200 level. Nasdaq Comp jumps 38 to 2499.
(John Shipman and Paul Vigna contributed to this post.)
US stocks post their biggest gain in almost two months as investors put worries about European debt woes aside for a day and focus on strong earnings reports and improving manufacturing conditions in the Midwest.
DJIA rises 122 to 11167, its biggest gain since March 5. S&P 500 jumps 15 to 1207 and Nasdaq Comp rises 40 to 2512. All 10 S&P 500 sectors finish higher, with finanicals, industrials and consumer discretionary leading the way.
Investors were jittery after S&P downgraded Greece, Portugal and Spain. But no one’s downgraded today and stocks soar.
Go figure.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) proves to be Palm’s white night, swooping in and buying the embattled smartphone pioneer late yesterday for about $1B. Palm shares soared 26% to $5.84, above H-P’s $5.70 bid. H-P drops 0.8% to $52.88.
Exxon’s 1Q earnings soared 38%, but still fell short of analysts’ expectations, in part due to a $200 million charge tied to US health care legislation. Shares fell 0.8% to $68.66.
And WSJ just reported Continental (CAL) and UAL Corp.’s (UAUA) United Airlines are expected to announce Monday that they’re merging. A combination would form the world’s largest airline by traffic.
We’re struck today by what looks like another “disconnect” in the stock market, manifested in Boeing (BA) shares, which rallied nearly 4% and contributed almost 21 upside points to the DJIA. BA’s gain alone easily kept the DJIA from closing in negative terrain.
But BA reported 1Q profit fell 15% (but not as much as feared), and the company trimmed full-year EPS view, reflecting special charge for loss of health-care related tax benefits. Backlog also fell slightly and revenue was down almost 8%.
But that’s not the disconnect.
Investors buying BA shares today didn’t pay much mind to the action in the airline sector (y’know, Boeing’s customers), where stocks got hammered as carriers like American (AMR) and AirTran (AAI) continue to post losses; AMR’s was wider vs year ago while AAI’s narrowed.
AMR CEO Gerard Arpey said while the carrier made progress on revenue, “we were simply unable to overcome the challenge of the global economic environment coupled with once-again escalating fuel prices.”
Sounds a bit gloomy; AMR shares fell 9.2% to close at $7.77.
- Don’t dismiss the notion that retail spending is being partly driven by homeowners strategically defaulting on mortgages, even though it’s hard to quantify exactly hoe many people are “spending the mortgage,” Paul Jackson writes at HousingWire.
- Small businesses, which have led job creation in previous recoveries, may be finally contributing to job growth now as the economy rebounds, Atlanta Fed’s macroblog says.
- “The Squid has been living for years off the simple fact that, like the fabled IBM of yore, no-one ever got fired (or sued) for picking Goldman Sachs,” the Epicurean Dealmaker notes. “That calculus has been changed,” and everyone knows it.
- Google’s (GOOG) recent acquisition of secretive early-stage start-up Agnilux ranks as the “most curious” deal in its history, Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski says.
- Picking apart Apple’s (AAPL) blowout earnings, Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer says Apple’s iPhone business is growing much faster internationally than it is in the US.
- Lots of merger chatter swirling swirling around UAL Corp’s (UAUA) United Airlines. And while a deal might make sense for operational reasons, Footnoted’s Theo Francis notes the company has made it “substantially more attractive” for its top executives to seal a deal.
- Facebook’s launching an ambitious plan to essentially take over the Internet.
- Looks like Adobe (ADBE has finally given up on getting Flash on the iPhone. “We will still be shipping the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5,” Mike Chambers, Adobe’s principal product manager for the Flash platform, writes on his blog. “However, we are currently not planning any additional investments in that feature.”
- Investors take note: A stock-market indicator with a good long-term record has flashed a buy signal.
Bullish sentiment toward Boeing (BA) has ramped up this month, and the stock has benefited well, up about 15% in March so far. BA’s been graced with at least four analyst upgrades this month, two of them this week. Recent announcement of production increases was a key factor for both Oppenheimer and Macquarie in boosting their ratings this week.
A couple things have caught our eye, though, which might make Boeing look like less of a sure-thing.
The first item was Air Berlin’s cut last week in its order of 787s — to 15 from 25, and reduced its option to buy 10 more to only 5. The airline also agreed to delay delivery of nine 737s until 2015. They were originally scheduled for delivery this year and next year. Air Berlin cited market conditions, and the CFO said the reduced orders mean a “significant reduction in financial obligations.”
You don’t want to skip this one. We tie together Australia’s interest-rate hike, the Fed’s likely response, the slack in the economy, retail sales and the images of planes parked in the desert and empty cargo ships anchored in a bay in Singapore.
Posted by Steven Russolilloon August 27, 2009 Airlines /
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One thing you can say for the Dreamliner, it's still well grounded.
So, let me get this straight. Boeing’s (BA) 787 Dreamliner’s been delayed five times and is two years behind schedule. But the airliner proudly announces it expects the plane to fly by year’s end, and shares soar?
That was the case, today. Boeing shares closed up 8.4% at $51.82 as investors were delighted to see Boeing finally provide a clear-cut schedule and timeframe for its high-profile Dreamliner. It provided a stark contrast from the uncertainty created when Boeing previously delayed the flight. Newswires reporters Doug Cameron and Ann Keeton have the details:
The announcement resolves uncertainty created in June, when Boeing said a newly discovered structural flaw would force a delay but couldn’t say for how long. The new timetable wasn’t any worse than analysts had feared and builds in some room for further error.
Posted by Steven Russolilloon June 23, 2009 Airlines, Economy /
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One thing you can say for the Dreamliner, it's well grounded.
Boeing (BA) can’t seem to get anything right these days regarding the first flight of its new 787 Dreamliner.
Once again the company delayed the initial flight of the 787, saying wing-bending tests showed structural weakness. This is the fifth time the first 787 flight’s been delayed and is already two years behind schedule.
It’ll take several weeks before a new flight and delivery schedule is released, Boeing said on a conference call.
Boeing shares, which have lost half of their market value since the first delay was announced in October 2007, were recently down 7.7% at $43.27. The stock is taking about 31 points off the Dow, meaning it’s solely responsible for the index’s current slide. DJIA was recently down 14 in mid-afternoon trading.
J.P. Morgan reported some strong earnings today. But what this bloggers eye were some of the sub-numbers in the earnings report. The bank booked $1.8 billion in investment banking fees. But don’t be fooled – that wasn’t from big M&A advising. But $429 million was in advisory fees. Instead, that $1.3 billion + remaining fees […]
David Oreck, founder of a well-known maker of vacuums and air purifiers, says he’s upset his namesake company is in bankruptcy. He says Nashville, Tenn.-based Oreck Corp. was a perfectly profitable company when he sold his stake in it to a private equity firm in 2004. He blames the firm, New York-based American Securities Capital […]
