Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Thursday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:
- North Korea is in the process of building more nuclear bombs, citing an interview with the country's Vice Foreign Minister, Kim Gye Gwan.
- Taiwan's constitutional changes passed this week could help ease tensions with China as they made it more difficult for the island to declare independence and may prod President Chen Shui-bian to improve ties with the mainland, analysts said.

Financial Times:
- The process of ratification of the European Union draft constitution will be put on "pause" for the time being, though it will be completed, citing European Parliament President Josep Borrell.

Commercial Times:
- Chi Mei Optoelectronics, Taiwan's second-largest maker of flat panel displays, plans to raise prices of large-size liquid-crystal displays because of short supply.

China Daily:
- China's government is considering measures to restrict shoe exports as tensions rise with trading partners including the European Union over surging shipments.

Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Goldman Sachs:
- Reiterated Outperform on GE and DO.
- Reiterated Underperform on CVC.

Night Trading
Asian Indices are -.50% to +.25% on average.
S&P 500 indicated -.01%.
NASDAQ 100 indicated -.07%.

Morning Preview
US AM Market Call
NASDAQ 100 Pre-Market Indicator/Heat Map
Pre-market Commentary
Before the Bell CNBC Video(bottom right)
Global Commentary
Asian Indices
European Indices
Top 20 Business Stories
In Play
Bond Ticker
Daily Stock Events
Macro Calls
Rasmussen Consumer/Investor Daily Indices
CNBC Guest Schedule

Earnings of Note
Company/EPS Estimate
NSM/.22
NAV/.71
TOY/-.03
TOM/.24
SHFL/.18

Splits
Various ETFs

Economic Releases
8:30 EST:
- Initial Jobless Claims for last week are estimated to fall to 330K versus 350K the prior week.
- Continuing Claims are estimated to fall to 2591K versus 2602K prior.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly lower, led down by exporters in the region, on apprehension ahead of comments by the Fed's Greenspan. I expect US equities to open mixed-to-lower and to rally modestly later in the day after Greenspan's comments. As I stated earlier today, I expect Greenspan to hint that the Fed will remove the word "measured" from the June policy statement. However, I expect him to make convoluted statements otherwise, giving something to the doves and hawks. I do not expect him to explicitly state that the Fed is nearly done hiking rates. The Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the day.

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