Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Thursday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:
- KBR Inc., the largest US military contractor in Iraq, raised $473.3 million in an IPO that began the process of extricating the firm from its parent.
- Dell Inc.(DELL) will delay reporting of its fiscal third-quarter results, originally scheduled for tomorrow, until the end of the month. The change reflects the “complexity” of probes, both internally and by the SEC into possible accounting errors.
- An index of UK house prices rose to the highest level in four years in October, evidence that higher interest rates have yet to cool Britain’s $6.8 trillion property market, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveys reported.
- The Bank of Japan kept the lowest interest rates among major economies on hold as it waits for more evidence that consumer spending will recover.
- China’s spending on factories, real estate and other fixed assets grew at a slower pace in October after the government curbed lending and project approvals.
- Copper in Shanghai fell for the fourth straight day amid speculation that demand from China and the US is waning.

Financial Times:
- Cibus Genetics, a San Diego-based agriculture and chemicals company, will say it has developed technology that may deliver the benefits of genetic modification without inserting foreign genes into a crop.
- Goldcorp Inc., Canada’s second-largest gold producer, may hedge more of its copper production to protect the company against a price decline.

Shanghai Securities News:
- Royal Dutch Shell Plc will hasten oil shale development in northeastern China’s Jilin province. Shell plans to drill 40 to 70 wells in the next two years and may invest further on as many as three refining facilities that can produce 5 to 15 million metric tons of oil products a year each.

Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Citigroup:
- Reiterated Buy on (LIZ), target $55.
- Reiterated Buy on (DELL), target $27.

Night Trading
Asian Indices are -.25% to +.50% on average.
S&P 500 indicated -.14%.
NASDAQ 100 indicated -.08%.

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
- (BKS)/-.04
- (BIG)/-.03
- (PLCE)/1.20
- (CLE)/.38
- (FL)/.41
- (GPS)/.22
- (HP)/.74
- (HPQ)/.64
- (HIBB)/.28
- (INTU)/-.12
- (JLG)/.33
- (KLIC)/.09
- (MRVL)/.15
- (SHLD)/.98
- (SSI)/.01
- (SBUX)/.17
- (WSM)/.24
- (ZLC)/-.46
- (ZOLL)/.37

Upcoming Splits
- None of note

Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
- The Consumer Price Index for October is estimated to fall -.3% versus a -.5% decline in September.
- The CPI Ex Food & Energy for October is estimated to rise .2% versus a .2% gain in September.
- Initial Jobless Claims for last week are estimated to rise to 311,000 versus 308,000 the prior week.
- Continuing Claims are estimated to fall to 2430K versus 2448K prior.

9:15 am EST
- Industrial Production for October is estimated to rise .3% versus a .6% decline in September.
- Capacity Utilization for October is estimated to rise to 82.0% versus 81.9% in September.

12:00 pm EST
- The Philly Fed for November is estimated to rise to 5.0 versus a reading of -.7 in October.

1:00 pm EST
- The NAHB Housing Market Index for November is estimated to fall to 30 versus a reading of 31 in October.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by technology shares in the region. I expect US equities to open modestly lower and to rally into the afternoon, finishing modestly higher. The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into the day.

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