Style Underperformer:
- Large-Cap Growth +1.09%
- 1) Restaurants +.09% 2) Drugs +.29% 3) Biotech +.56%
- VQ, OPNT, LRE, MKTX, ILMN, MFRM, FAST, UTHR, INFY, JAZZ and BKS
- 1) NFX 2) INFY 3) GT 4) MON 5) FCX
- 1) GM 2) PGR 3) UTHR 4) BKS 5) DELL
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Bear Radar
Style Underperformer:
Bull Radar
Style Outperformer:
- Mid-Cap Growth +1.59%
- 1) Coal +4.59% 2) Steel +3.29% 3) Gold & Silver +2.99%
- CLF, PZE, ORIG, TITN, TSCO, DNKN, GOLD, MPEL, CLNE, CYT, MCK, HXL, FIO, RDC, ANR, LNKD, HPQ, AGP, MOH, CE and ACI
- 1) MCK 2) VRTX 3) MPEL 4) IRM 5) HCA
- 1) AA 2) T 3) MCK 4) AVID 5) GOOG
Thursday Watch
Evening Headlines
Bloomberg:
- Spain Yields Trouble Guindos as Rajoy Rallies Party. Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said the surge in borrowing costs will be a “problem” if it persists, as the government used the threat of a European bailout to rally support behind austerity measures. Spanish 10-year bond yields surged as high as 6 percent yesterday, approaching the levels that pushed Greece, Ireland and Portugal into bailouts, and the extra yield over German bunds held above 400 basis points. In a test of appetite for bonds from the euro region’s periphery, Italy sells as much as 5 billion euros ($6.6 billion) of bonds today. “A spread of more than 400 basis points is obviously a problem” if it persists over the medium term, de Guindos said in Barcelona yesterday. “The government needs to put the house in order because the alternative is much worse.” Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his government, in power since Dec. 21, are signaling to Spaniards they risk losing access to financing if they fail to convince investors they can reorder public finances and steer the economy back to growth. Rajoy is trying to persuade voters to accept budget cuts, tax increases and fewer subsidies as the economy suffers its second recession in three years and half of young people are unemployed.
- Europe's Debt Crisis Worsening, Fuels Instability, El-Erian Says. Europe's fiscal crisis is getting worse and will keeping fueling market instability, according to Pacific Investment Management Co.'s Mohamed A. El-Erian. "The problems in Europe are getting bigger," El-Erian, co-chief investment officer at the world's biggest bond fund, said on Bloomberg Radio's "The Hays Advantage" with Kathleen Hays as he prepared to speak before the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. "Europe has a debt issue and Europe has a growth issue, and until Europe deals with both, we are going to have these reoccurring periods of nervousness in the market."
- North Korea Names Kim Jong Un Party Chief. Kim Jong Un was named head of North Korea’s sole political party, solidifying his status ahead of a planned missile launch as soon as today that could halt a U.S. food deal and raise regional tensions. Kim, who is believed to be younger than 30, was named first secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said yesterday. It was his first government post since becoming head of the country after the December death of his father Kim Jong Il, who was named “eternal general secretary” of the party yesterday, the agency said.
- Roche Signals It's Willing to Up Offer for Illumina(ILMN). Roche Holding AG (ROG) indicated it is willing to raise a $51-a-share bid for Illumina Inc. (ILMN) (ILMN), calling its current offer a “more than reasonable starting point for negotiations” in a letter to Illumina shareholders.
- Inflation Lurks as Stealth Tax on Top of Form 1040 by Caroline Baum. It distorts price signals and leads to a misallocation of capital. It’s a silent way for the government and central bank to devalue the currency, raise prices, help borrowers and punish savers. And it’s exactly the wrong prescription for the U.S. The official push for higher inflation as a cure for a sluggish U.S. recovery began about two years ago with a paper by International Monetary Fund economists, including Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard, titled “Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy.”
- Oil Trades Near One-Week High on U.S. Fuel-Inventory Drop.
- World Bank Cuts China 2012 Growth Outlook on Exports. China’s economic growth may slide to a 13-year low in 2012 as a sluggish world recovery damps export demand and domestic investment and consumption growth decelerate, the World Bank’s latest forecast shows. The Washington-based lender cut its estimate for China’s expansion this year to 8.2 percent in a report released today in Beijing from a January projection of 8.4 percent.
- Google(GOOG), Amazon(AMZN) Are Potential Buyers for Deal Site Travelzoo(TZOO). Travelzoo’s stock soared by nearly 30 percent today on news that the 14-year-old deals site is planning to sell itself.
- Short Selling Drops on NYSE and Nasdaq. Short-selling fell at the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market during the second half of March. In the exchanges' latest twice-a-month statistics, the number of short-selling positions at the NYSE not yet closed out, known as short interest, decreased 1.55%. Those figures were for the period ended March 30, The positions stood at 12,632,330,667 shares, from a revised 12,830,691,538 shares in the period ended March 15. On Nasdaq, short interest decreased 1.29% to 6,872,608,156 shares from 6,962,358,936 shares, over the same period.
- Fearful Final Hours for Briton in China. The day before his death in the fog-shrouded Chinese city of Chongqing, Neil Heywood sensed that something was amiss. The British businessman had been summoned on short notice to a meeting in Chongqing in early November with representatives of the family of Bo Xilai, the local Communist Party chief, according to an account by a friend whom Mr. Heywood contacted at the time. Mr. Heywood told the friend he was "in trouble."
- School Vouchers Gain Ground. Louisiana is poised to establish the nation's most expansive system of school choice by adopting a package of vouchers and other tools that would give many parents control over the use of tax dollars to educate their children. The initiative would effectively redefine vouchers.
- Demolishing Paul Ryan. On current course, House GOP Budget Chairman Paul Ryan himself may exhaust their entire thermonuclear arsenal before November. Once again, the Campaigner in Chief threw the switch himself, calling the Ryan House budget "social Darwinism," "a Trojan horse" and "antithetical to our entire history." Rev. Samuel Rodriquez of the Hispanic Evangelical Association said the poor would be "budget-war collateral damage."
- GEORGE SOROS: The Euro Crisis Just Entered A 'Less Volatile But More Lethal Phase'.
- This Might Have Something To Do With The Sudden Carnage In Italy.
- Bruno Iksil, JPMorgan and the Real Conflict with Credit Default Swaps.
- Global Systemic Risk Is Rising Rapidly Again. (graph)
- Bernanke's Right Hand Dove, Janet Yellen, Hints At ZIRP Through Late 2015.
- Herman Cain: 'We're Becoming a Perpetual Nanny State'. The government’s safety net is too big and “growing too fast” under the Obama administration, former contender for the Republican presidential nomination Herman Cain said Wednesday. “We’re not only becoming this perpetual nanny state, the government is encouraging people to come to the government trough,” he said on “The Kudlow Report.”
- PC Shipments Up Nearly 2% in 1st Quarter. The number of personal computers shipped worldwide rose more than expected in the first quarter, but the bump did little to mask the larger challenges for the industry. Gartner Inc. said Wednesday that there were 89 million PCs shipped in the first three months of the year, an increase of 1.9 percent from a year earlier. That's above the research firm's earlier expectations of 1.2 percent. Another research group, IDC, also announced Wednesday that shipments were up 2.3 percent, above its expectations of a 0.9 percent decline. The reports may have beat expectations, but confirmed that the PC industry is in a state of flux.
- Greek Crisis Leaves Cyprus Mired in Debt. Banks in Europe must demonstrate to the European Banking Authority by the end of June that they have enough capital to be viable. Banks that cannot provide that evidence will face pressure to accept government bailouts or, in extreme cases, be shut down. The failure of its biggest bank would have grave consequences for Cyprus, where the economy revolves around financial services — a result of the island’s appeal as a low-tax gateway to the Middle East and Africa for companies from Russia and elsewhere in Europe.
Seeking Alpha:
- Iran Woos Oil Buyers With Easy Credit. Iran is trying to skirt US and European sanctions by luring nations to buy its oil on highly advantageous credit terms, say officials in the industry. Tehran has been offering a handful of potential customers in Asia, including India, 180 days of free credit, according to the officials. They estimate that each month of credit amounts to a discount of roughly $1.2 to $1.5 a barrel.
- Teen Financial Confidence Plunges. Talk about teen angst. The latest concerns of the 18-and-under set go way beyond pimples and prom dates: Their level of financial confidence has taken a dramatic slide. Just 56% of kids 14 to 18 think they will be as financially well-off, or better off, than their parents, according to a new survey from Junior Achievement and The Allstate Foundation. That's a huge plunge from 89% in 2011.
- Schwab Warns Against Proposed Money Market Rules. Proposals to further regulate money market funds offer little new protection for investors and could end up devastating the $2.6 trillion industry, Charles Schwab Corp said in a letter sent last week to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
- Italy 3-Yr Yields Seen Jumping At Auction On Spain, Reform Fears. Italian three-year borrowing costs are set to jump by a full percentage point from a month ago at a bond auction on Thursday, the latest sign investors' concerns about Spain are spreading to other euro zone countries hit by recession.
- McKesson(MCK) Wins New 2-Yr Veterans Affairs Contract. Pharmaceutical wholesaler McKesson Corp on Wednesday said it was selected by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to continue as the VA's prime pharmaceutical supplier for at least two more years. News of the contract, which includes options for up to three two-year extensions, sent shares of McKesson up more than 4 percent in after hours trading.
- U.S. SEC Sues AutoChina for Securities Fraud. U.S. securities regulators on Wednesday sued AutoChina International Ltd, its executives and others for securities fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission said the company's employees, board members and other Chinese citizens unlawfully bought and sold AutoChina stock to boost its trading volume as the company sought loans. AutoChina, which is based in China and owns and operates a commercial vehicle leasing business there, traded its shares on the NASDAQ stock market until last October.
- Avid(AVID) 1st-Qtr Revenue Forecast Misses, Shares Slip. Avid Technology Inc forecast quarterly revenue that missed analysts' estimates, hurt by weaker demand at one of its business segments, sending the digital audio and video editing software maker's shares down 17 percent after the bell.
- Chinese Take to Web to Debate Bo's Downfall. China’s web censors laboured in vain on Wednesday as the country’s citizens messaged each other about the one topic on everyone’s mind: the fate of Bo Xilai, the purged party official, and his wife.
- Europe's Banks Beached as ECB Stimulus Runs Dry. The European Central Bank's €1 trillion (£824bn) lending spree over the winter has stored up a host of fresh problems, leaving parts of the banking system more vulnerable than before as the short-term "sugar rush" nears exhaustion. Credit experts say the Spanish and Italian banks are trapped with large losses on sovereign bonds bought with ECB funds under the three-year lending programme, or Long-Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO). Andrew Roberts, credit chief at RBS, said Spanish banks used ECB funds to purchase five-year Spanish bonds at yields near 3.5pc in February and 4.5pc in December. The same bonds were trading at 4.77pc on Wednesday, implying a large loss on the capital value of the bonds. It is much the same story for Italian banks pressured into buying Italian debt by their own government. Any further dent to confidence in Italy and Spain over coming weeks – either over fiscal slippage or the depth of economic contraction – could push losses to levels that trigger margin calls on collateral. "The banks are deeply underwater. This is turning into a disaster for the eurozone periphery now that the liquidity tap has been turned off," said Mr Roberts. "But given the opposition in Germany, the ECB can't easily do another LTRO until there is a major crisis."
- None of note
- Asian equity indices are unch. to +.50% on average.
- Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 166.0 -6.5 basis points.
- Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 138.50 -1.5 basis points.
- FTSE-100 futures +.01%.
- S&P 500 futures +.28%.
- NASDAQ 100 futures +.28%.
Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
- (FAST)/.34
- (GOOG)/9.64
- (JBHT)/.52
8:30 am EST
- The Trade Deficit for February is estimated to shrink to -$51.8B versus -$52.6B in January.
- The Producer Price Index for March is estimated to rise +.3% versus a +.4% gain in February.
- The PPI Ex Food & Energy for March is estimated to rise +.2% versus a +.2% gain in February.
- Initial Jobless Claims are estimated to fall to 355K versus 357K the prior week.
- Continuing Claims are estimated to fall to 3335K versus 3338K prior.
Upcoming Splits
- None of note
Other Potential Market Movers
- The Fed's Dudley speaking, Fed's Lockhart speaking, Fed's Plosser speaking, Fed's Raskin speaking, China Fixed Asset Investment/GDP/Industrial Production/Retail Sales data, 30Y T-Bond Auction, weekly EIA natural gas inventory report, weekly Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index and the (AYR) analyst event could also impact trading today.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Stocks Higher into Final Hour on Euro Bounce, More Financial/Homebuilding Sector Optimism, Short-Covering
Broad Market Tone:
- Advance/Decline Line: Substantially Higher
- Sector Performance: Almost Every Sector Rising
- Volume: Below Average
- Market Leading Stocks: Performing In Line
- VIX 19.85 -2.65%
- ISE Sentiment Index 96.0 +52.38%
- Total Put/Call 1.07 +7.0%
- NYSE Arms .76 -69.68%
- North American Investment Grade CDS Index 102.04 -2.19%
- European Financial Sector CDS Index 247.14 -3.93%
- Western Europe Sovereign Debt CDS Index 274.97 -1.36%
- Emerging Market CDS Index 266.06 -1.29%
- 2-Year Swap Spread 28.75 -2.5 basis points
- TED Spread 38.75 unch.
- 3-Month EUR/USD Cross-Currency Basis Swap -56.75 +1.5 basis points
- 3-Month T-Bill Yield .08% unch.
- Yield Curve 173.0 +4 basis points
- China Import Iron Ore Spot $148.70/Metric Tonne +.47%
- Citi US Economic Surprise Index 4.80 +.3 point
- 10-Year TIPS Spread 2.31 +6 basis points
- Nikkei Futures: Indicating a +77 open in Japan
- DAX Futures: Indicating +2 open in Germany
- Higher: On gains in my Retail, Medical and Biotech sector longs
- Disclosed Trades: Covered some of my (IWM)/(QQQ) hedges and then added them back
- Market Exposure: 50% Net Long
Today's Headlines
Bloomberg:
- Coeure Triggers Bets ECB Will Restart Bond Purchases for Spain. European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure triggered speculation that the bank will revive its bond-purchase program to lower Spain’s borrowing costs as the region’s debt crisis threatens to boil over again.
- Italy Sells 11 Billion Euros of Bills as Crisis Returns. Italy sold 11 billion euros ($14.4 billion) of Treasury bills, meeting its target for the auction as rates rose on one-year debt for the first time since November amid a return of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. The Rome-based Treasury auctioned 8 billion euros of 361- day bills at 2.84 percent, up from 1.405 percent at the last sale of similar-maturity debt on March 13. Investors bid for 1.52 times the amount offered, up from 1.38 times last month. Also sold were 3 billion euros of three-month bills at 1.249 percent, compared with 0.492 last month. Italy will auction as much as 5 billion euros of bonds tomorrow. “After three months that were calmer than expected, the euro crisis is back,” Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank in London, said in an e-mailed note before the auction. While current 10-year yields are still “affordable” for Italy and Spain, “if fear feeds on fear, as has often been the case in previous waves of crisis, things could potentially get worse,” he said.
- Spain's Debt Struggle Opens Door to Sarkozy Campaign Message. “Do you want to be in the same situation as Spain or Greece?” Sarkozy said today on France Info radio, the same rhetorical question he’d asked the night before in a Canal-Plus television appearance. “If I hadn’t done pension reform, if I hadn’t decided to only replace one of every two retiring state workers, can you doubt that we’d be in the same situation.” While Sarkozy trails Socialist challenger Francois Hollande in polls for the decisive May 6 vote, the gap has narrowed in recent weeks.
- U.S. Import Prices Jumped 1.3% in March on Fuel, Materials. Prices of goods imported into the U.S. rose more than forecast in March, reflecting higher costs for fuel and industrial materials such as metals. The 1.3 percent gain in the import-price index was the biggest since April 2011 and followed a revised 0.1 percent drop in February that was previously reported as an increase, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Economists projected the March gauge would increase 0.8 percent, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. Prices excluding fuel climbed 0.5 percent, also the most in 11 months. The cost of imported petroleum and products jumped 4.3 percent in March, the most since April 2011, from the prior month and was up 9.6 percent from a year earlier. Central bank officials indicated they will probably hold off on more monetary accommodation unless prices rise more slowly than their 2 percent target or the economic expansion falters, according to the minutes. Their preferred price gauge, tied to consumer spending and issued by the Commerce Department, rose 2.3 percent in the year ended in February.
- Copper Futures May Fall for Third Day on Signs Demand Will Ebb. Copper may fall for a third day in New York as signs of a worsening debt crisis in Europe and slowing growth in China fuel concern that demand will stall. Rising bond yields and missed deficit targets in Spain signaled that the region’s fiscal crisis may escalate. Copper dropped to a 12-week low yesterday after reports showed lower imports of the metal than a month earlier in China, the world’s biggest user. “Concerns about the health of the global economy are weighing on copper,” Frank Cholly, a senior commodity broker at RJO Futures in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. “The Euro-zone crisis may reignite. It looks like China is slowing.” Yesterday, prices closed lower than the 100- and 200-day moving averages. Falling below the measures can be a bearish signal to some investors who follow historical price patterns.
- Oil Extends Gain as Distillate, Gasoline Inventories Drop. Crude oil for May delivery rose $1.56, or 1.5 percent, to $102.58 a barrel at 12:19 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil traded at $101.50 before release of the inventory report at 10:30 a.m. Brent oil for May settlement increased 49 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $120.37 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.
- Unemployment Falls Fast in U.S. If Men Get College Degree. The U.S. workplace is polarizing between the education haves and have-nots, says David Autor, professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. So-called middle-skill jobs, typically well-paying work that doesn’t require extensive higher education, are vanishing, dividing the labor force into high- and low-skill positions. While women are moving up the knowledge ladder, male educational attainment is growing at a slower rate. “It is terrific that women are getting higher levels of education,” Autor says. “The problem is that males are not.”
- North Korea Defies U.S. in Readying Missile Launch as Soon as Tomorrow. North Korea moved ahead with plans to fire a long-range rocket as soon as tomorrow in defiance of warnings from the U.S. that doing so would destabilize the region and scuttle a deal for American food assistance. North Korea has begun fueling the rocket that will put a satellite in orbit sometime between April 12 and 16, Yonhap News cited space agency official Paek Chang Ho as telling a group of foreign journalists in the capital of Pyongyang.
- Fed's Lockhart Says Weak Jobs Report Doesn't Require More QE. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said while the jobs report for March was disappointing, it doesn’t alter his view that the U.S. economy is growing moderately, and he would be “reticent” to support additional asset purchases, or quantitative easing. “I am still not convinced that another round in this time frame would achieve a great deal,” Lockhart told reporters in Stone Mountain, Georgia, today. “I view it as a policy that would respond more to a fairly dramatic negative change of direction of the economy that could be evidenced by rising unemployment, evidenced by plummeting growth.”
- U.S. Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple(AAPL), Hachette. The U.S. sued Apple Inc. (AAPL), Hachette SA, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster in New York district court, claiming the publishers colluded to fix eBook prices. CBS Corp. (CBS)’s Simon & Schuster, Lagardère SCA’s Hachette Book Group and News Corp. (NWSA)’s HarperCollins settled their suits today, two people familiar with the cases said.
- Rosengren Says U.S. Money Funds Threaten Financial Stability. Money-market funds in the U.S. may be taking excessive risks that pose a threat to financial stability by holding European debt whose value could decline if the region’s crisis worsened, said Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren. “A significant source of the credit risk in many prime money market funds over the past year has been the large exposure to European banks,” Rosengren said at Stone Mountain, Georgia, today. In evaluating “risk from unexpected problems in Europe, money-market funds remain an important potential transmission channel to the United States,” he said.
- Fed Considers Refining 'Stress Tests'. A Federal Reserve official responded Tuesday to widespread criticism of the most recent round of "stress tests," saying the central bank will consult with academics, analysts and banks to improve the process. Fed governor Daniel Tarullo signaled, however, that the Fed would continue to resist calls from bank executives to disclose the details of how it calculates the test results.
- China Seen Bolstering Oil Reserves. China's crude-oil imports jumped to near-record levels in March, bolstering the belief among some energy analysts that the country is again hoarding oil for its strategic reserves. If the predictions prove accurate, China's growing thirst for oil could underpin already-high crude prices and push the country's oil imports above market expectations. On Tuesday, China said its oil imports reached 5.57 million barrels a day in March, the third-highest month on record and a rise of 8.7% from the year-ago month. For the quarter, China's crude imports rose 11% from the year-ago quarter, a much stronger pace than full-year 2011's increase of 6%, the China's General Administration of Customs said.
CNBC.com:
- Forget China GDP, Other Indicators Paint Bearish Picture. Markets may be fixated on China's widely-anticipated growth data due on Friday, but some analysts tell CNBC investors should look beyond the figures and focus on several other indicators which, they say, paint a more dire picture of the economy. According to Paul Gambles, managing partner at MBMG, China's gross domestic product (GDP) data — widely regarded as a barometer of the country's economic health — are among the "less reliable" figures from the government. "We tend to take the view that the least reliable statistics that come out of China are perhaps the GDP numbers, the unemployment numbers and the CPI numbers," Gambles told CNBC on Wednesday. Instead, investors should place more importance on data like energy usage, new car sales external Purchasing Managers' Index, which he said pointed to a less robust Chinese economy.
- Next Generation of US Doctors Sees Gloomy Future. A majority of young doctors feel pessimistic about the future of the U.S. healthcare system, with the new healthcare law cited as the main reason, according to a survey released to Reuters on Wednesday.
- Wasn't Europe Fixed? Fears Arise Again Over Debt Crisis. Europe's debt problems, pushed into the background by an American-style central bank liquidity surge, have come back to revisit the markets, perhaps sooner than many investors had expected. "If the periphery's credit crunch continues, the region's recession could be deeper and its recovery prospects weaker than market expectations," Athanasios Vamvakidis, forex strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told clients.
- Natural Gas Market Falling Victim to the Bear. The natural gas market has hit a lull having fallen below $2 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) to record a new 14-year low.
- George Zimmerman to be Charged in Shooting of Trayvon Martin.
- Pretty Soon, We Need to Start Talking A LOT About This Budget Chart.
- 49 Former NASA Scientists Send A Letter Disputing Climate Change. Some prominent voices at NASA are fed up with the agency's activist stance toward climate change. The following letter asking the agency to move away from climate models and to limit its stance to what can be empirically proven, was sent by 49 former NASA scientists and astronauts. The letter criticizes the Goddard Institute For Space Studies especially, where director Jim Hansen and climatologist Gavin Schmidt have been outspoken advocates for action.
- China Went Ahead And Sold Iran $9 Million Of Forbidden US Computer Equipment.
- Obama's DISASTER: People Hate Obamacare More Than Ever.
- The Anatomy of a USD-Funding Crisis and the Fed's Global Swap-Line Bailout.
- US Posts Biggest March Budget Deficit In History, Or How The ???? Chart Became The ????+? Chart.
- Beige Book Makes New QE Less Likely.
Chillicothe Gazette:
- Paccar's(PCAR) Kenworth Plant to Lay Off 10% of Workers. One in 10 workers at Kenworth Truck Co.'s Chillicothe plant no longer will have a job Monday. Plant Manager Scott Blue confirmed the manufacturer will lay off 10 percent of its work force to prepare for a reduction in production at the site. Blue said orders have fallen off by about 10 percent and the company has to decrease its work force to match the demand. Blue said it's fair to say the news is surprising, but said truck manufacturing companies across the globe are seeing a slump in demand. "We (Kenworth) still have a record market share, so this is absolutely (happening) across the industry," Blue said. In February, PACCAR Inc. reported its fourth quarter sales for 2011 almost doubled but warned the ongoing European debt crisis has resulted in smaller truck orders from eurozone countries.
Reuters:
Telegraph:
- Spanish Epiphany as Depression Deepens? Spain’s industrial output is sliding at an accelerating rate, as is entirely predictable if you enforce draconian fiscal tightening on an economy in deep recession with no offsetting monetary stimulus or exchange rate devaluation. The latest data show that output fell 5.1% (y/y) in February, after 4.3% in January and 3.5% in December. Durable goods fell 14.8pc, the sixth successive monthly fall. Capital goods output fell 10.6pc, according to Raj Badiani from IHS Global Insight. This is politically untenable. Unemployment is already 23.6pc on the Eurostat measure. David Owen from Jefferies Fixed Income expects this to reach 27.5pc by the end of the year (which is roughly 32pc using the old measure from the 1990s, based on a Bank of Spain study).
- Pension Risks Threaten UK Finances, IMF Warns. Britain is at risk of pensions timebomb that could cost the state as much as £750bn, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.
El Confidencial:
- Madrid will raise the price of bus and train tickets by an average of 11%. The price rise is due to increasing fuel prices.
Bear Radar
Style Underperformer:
- Large-Cap Growth +59%
- 1) Gold & Silver -1.60% 2) Software +.09% 3) HMOs +.29%
- FFIV, NTAP, BVN, CRESY, RYAAY, OPNT, VPHM, PCAR, LAYN, JAZZ, SVVC, NFLX, AREX and CSC
- 1) VOD 2) FFIV 3) VMW 4) KORS 5) NUAN
- 1) OPNT 2) NTAP 3) UNG 4) GM 5) JPM
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