STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, October 21, 2011

[Pale Blue Dot]

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, October 21, 2011

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON October 20, 2011

Dow 11,541.78 +37.16 (+0.32%)
Nasdaq 2,598.62 -5.42 (-0.21%)
S&P 500 1,215.39 +5.51 (+0.45%)
10-Yr Bond... 2.19 -0.01 (-0.23%)
30-Year Bond 3.21 -0.01 (-0.22%)

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Market Conditions During Trading Hours

Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold

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Bush Administration Officials Convicted = 2
Names: David Safavian, James Fondren
Dishonorable Mention: former House majority leader, Tom DeLay

Bush Administration Officials Charged = 1
Name(s): Richard Lopez Razo

Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 = 12

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This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.

Read more: du

[Pale Blue Dot]

1. No reports today. nt

[Pale Blue Dot]

2. Oil prices above $86 ahead of Europe debt talks

SINGAPORE – Oil prices rose slightly toward $87 a barrel Friday in Asia ahead of a summit this weekend where European leaders will try to agree on a plan to contain their region's debt crisis.

Benchmark crude for December delivery was up 39 cents at $86.46 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 22 cents to settle at $86.07 in New York on Thursday.

Brent crude was down 26 cents at $109.50 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange in London.

Europe's leaders plan to meet Sunday and have scheduled another meeting for next week as differences emerged this week between Germany and France over how to protect European banks from the consequences of a possible default by the Greek government.

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices

[Pale Blue Dot]

3. U.S. Stock-Index Futures Rise as Europe Bailout Talks Intensify

U.S. stock futures advanced as euro- area leaders intensified negotiations to boost the region’s rescue funds before meeting in Brussels this weekend to discuss how to end the debt crisis.

SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) rose 1.4 percent in German trading as earnings beat estimates. Honeywell International Inc. (HON) added 1 percent before its earnings announcement.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in December gained 0.4 percent to 1,214.8 at 10:30 a.m. in London. The benchmark measure increased 0.5 percent yesterday. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures expiring the same month climbed 42 points, or 0.4 percent, to 11,514.

Euro-area leaders will meet twice next week to discuss their response to the debt crisis, including a plan to deploy $1.3 trillion. Talks speeded up on combining the European Union’s temporary and planned permanent rescue funds as of mid-2012, while scrapping a ceiling on bailout spending.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-21/u-s-stock-index-futures-rise-as-europe-bailout-talks-intensify.html

[xchrom]

27. US stock futures up after solid corporate earnings

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WALL_STREET?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-21-08-59-21

Stock index futures rose Friday as big U.S. companies reported solid third-quarter earnings.

Fast-food giant McDonald's Corp. said its profit rose 9 percent over last year, its ninth straight quarter of gains. Its results beat Wall Street's expectations. McDonald's shares surged 2.7 percent in early trading.

Industrial and financial conglomerate General Electric Co. said its net income rose 18 percent as its lending business continued to recover. Net income at software maker Microsoft Corp. rose 6 percent

Earnings at both companies were in line with analysts' expectations. Their revenue beat Wall Street estimates. GE shares fell 1.3 percent in pre-market trading.

[Hugin]

4. First recce.

Now there's a tour shirt worth having.

:)

[Demeter]

15. Congratulations, Hugin!

As first Rec, you have the option of choosing this Weekend's Theme/Feature!

As I am going off to a spectacular performance of "Carmina Burana" Sunday, it is my default topic, but it will keep if you have another that might be more appealing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWiyKgeGWx0&feature=related

Besides, I have the distinct memory of having used Carmina already...

[Demeter]

17. A shirt worth having--does it come in Kevlar?

[Fuddnik]

32. I've had a similar one for years.

It's a black shirt with the words "Black Death, European Tour 16-- to 16--". and a picture of a rat.

The back side has a list of cities it decimated, just like the 'toon.


Some people don't understand it.

[xchrom]

5. occupy morning!

:donut:

[kickysnana]

6. I don't occupy morning, I just try to survive it (since 1951). n/t

[xchrom]

8. it takes a lot of coffee for me to be this effervescent. nt

[Hugin]

14. ...

:hangover: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[xchrom]

7. europe: German business morale 'dips for fourth month in a row'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15401343

German business confidence has hit a 16-month low, amid fears the country may fall into recession.

The Ifo Institute's business climate index, dropped to 106.4 in October, the lowest since June 2010, from 107.4 in September.

It comes after Germany cut its 2012 growth forecast from 1.8%, to 1% on Thursday.

Investor confidence fell to a three-year low last week and the Dax share index has dropped 19% since August.

[xchrom]

10. Consumer confidence 'falls for fourth month in a row'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15398855

UK consumer confidence has fallen for the fourth month in a row, according to the Nationwide building society.

The mortgage lender's consumer confidence index fell three points in September to 45 points, This is 10 points lower than a year earlier.

It said that 80% of consumers believe there will be no improvement in the economy over the next six months.

Despite this, a quarter of consumers still think that now is a good time for a major purchase, the survey found.

[Demeter]

16. I'm Flapping My Wings as Hard As Ever I Can!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DYBRhqz5sbU/TZm0YqPhQlI/AAAAAAAAAwc/Fpq6TDWXJSI/s1600/confidence+fairy.jpg

[xchrom]

25. ...

:rofl:

[TalkingDog]

28. Awesome!

n/t

[Tansy_Gold]

30. .

:hi:

I see you in other forums. Good to see you here, too!

[TalkingDog]

40. Not a day goes by that I don't lurk here. But I'm teaching this semester and

have to forgo close scrutiny of the markets. Besides, you don't need to be in the train to know it's crashing.


Trust me, given the literacy and mental acuity of my student... I'd rather be here.

[AnneD]

31. I swear, as God is my witness....

I did not know that turkeys couldn't fly.:rofl:

[Demeter]

37. Touche`!

A hit, a palpable hit!

[xchrom]

12. Poland still wants euro, central bank head says

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_POLAND_ECONOMY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-21-07-23-31

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- The euro has proven "a great success" despite the debt problems gripping some countries that use it, the outgoing head of the European Central Bank said Friday. A top Polish financial official, meanwhile, insisted his country remains keen on adopting the currency.

The optimism expressed by ECB head Jean-Claude Trichet and Poland's central bank chief Marek Belka comes amid growing concern about the viability of the euro due to the financial problems gripping Greece, Italy and Spain and other European nations.

"The euro as a currency is a great success indeed," Trichet said during a conference in Warsaw organized by the National Bank of Poland. He said the currency remains credible because "it is backed by remarkable fundamentals."

Trichet, who is retiring, has often argued that what Europe is seeing is not a crisis of the euro currency, but one of government finances. He repeated that view in Warsaw, saying that times are difficult and that governments must work hard to get their finances in order.

[Demeter]

19. What Europe Wanted Was a Universal Currency Across Its Continent That Wasn't the $

What they got was a universal straight-jacket.

It was a beautiful concept, currency without borders, but the execution leaves something to be desired.

The problem was, the populations of European countries are not ready or able to give up their sovereignty and become a United States of Europe. Despite our regional differences, most of us in the US are quite willing to follow the same leadership, and until recently, that leadership was willing to give all Americans (if sufficiently prodded) a fair deal, tending toward equality of opportunity and all those other Democratic ideals...

But now, it is far more likely that the US will break up into regions due to the predatory, neglectful nature of national Corporate Crony politics, before Europe will unite into one great power. Europe doesn't want to be a Superpower, not all of it. It doesn't want standing armies of conquest, capital flows outside national borders, and all the other appurtenances of a Great Empire.

Because that IS the end game. Otherwise, there is no point to Unification.

The Corporatization of Europe is not going well. They see what Corporatization did to the US.

[xchrom]

13. EU launches its first satellite navigation system

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_SATELLITE_NAVIGATION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-21-07-30-10

BRUSSELS (AP) -- A Russian rocket launched first two satellites of the European Union's Galileo navigation system Friday after years of waiting for the start of the program billed as the main rival of the ubiquitous American GPS network.

The launch of the Soyuz from French Guiana, on the northern coast of South America, marks the maiden voyage of the Russian rocket outside the former Soviet Union, with European and Russian authorities cheering at liftoff.

The rocket is expected to place into orbit the Galileo IOV-1 PFM and FM2 satellites during a nearly four-hour mission. The two satellites will be released in opposite directions.

"The first part of this mission went well," Jean-Yves Le Gall, chairman and CEO of Arianespace, the commercial arm of the European Space Agency, said in a brief statement to officials before returning to the control room.

[xchrom]

9. asia: China to control shadow banking and private lending

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15380188

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has said it is looking to curb the rise of shadow banking and private lending in the country.

Liu Mingkang, chairman of CBRC, said the commission was taking measures to ensure such activities do not put the financial system at risk.

There have been concerns that private loans are hurting the government's effort to control lending.

Some estimates put private loans at 4 trillion yuan ($627bn; £406bn).



***:shrug: we shall see.

[xchrom]

11. Tokyo workers sleep less than New York, Europe peers

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111021n1.html

Tokyo office workers sleep at least 30 minutes less than their New York, Paris, Shanghai and Stockholm Peers each night, averaging six hours, or 14 percent less than the recommended minimum, a study said.

Tokyo workers went to bed at 12:18 a.m. on average, the study by Stanford University and foodmaker Ajinomoto Co., which sells Glyna, a sleep supplement, found. The U.S. National Sleep Foundation urges seven to nine hours a night.

The study was presented at a meeting of the World Sleep Federation in Tokyo Wednesday along with other research that highlighted sleep deprivation among Japanese. A separate study presented at the forum found an "extremely serious" lack of sleep among junior high school students in Japan.

"Most of the people in Tokyo are sleep-deprived," said Makoto Bannai, a senior researcher at Ajinomoto, which sponsored the study. "They need to know better sleep can bring more efficiency to daily activities."

[Demeter]

20. Hope they haven't put it off until too late

and that they aren't doing it at the behest of their new international cronies: Citi, GS, hedgefunds, etc.

[DemReadingDU]

18. NPR: European Union Wiz Me: A Show Tune About The Euro

10/18/11 European Union Wiz Me: A Show Tune About The Euro
Germany and France spent decades at each others' throats. Now, bound by a common currency, they're working together to save the euro zone. It's a story that's begging for a musical number — which, as it happens, we have right here.

click to read lyrics and hear the song...
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/18/141478878/european-union-wiz-me-a-show-tune-about-the-euro



10/21/11 France And Germany: A Love Story
France and Germany are trying to come up with a bailout plan for Europe. This isn't the first time they've fought over money.

Like any bickering couple, they've spent centuries fighting over finances. In fact, the history of their relationship is so dramatic — so theatrical — it's best to tell it in song. (see above link)

Our story begins in 1870.

France and Germany — aka Prussia — were an unlikely couple. France was a glittery homecoming queen; Prussia was a scrappy neighborhood kid.

When they got into an argument about the Spanish throne, France decided to teach Prussia a lesson.

"It was really a war by accident," says historian David Marsh. The Franco-Prussian war lasted just one year. France got crushed.

"France is still trying to get over that humiliation to this day," Marsh says. "Because that did actually mark the birth of a new Germany."

Germany made France pay reparations — five billion gold francs. And even today, if you walk around Berlin — you see that French money everywhere.
.
.
Of course, there was another war. And another after that — World Wars I and II. But this time, Germany lost, and had to pay massive reparations.
.
.
So, in 1992, the euro was born.
.
.
conclusion...
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/21/141512746/france-and-germany-a-love-story

[Demeter]

21. Keiser Report: Live by Fraud, Die by Fraud (E198)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b65Rl-KcZaw&feature=player_embedded

[Demeter]

22. We Are Not Your Human Resources by David Michael Green

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about Occupy Wall Street. She said to me “This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life”. I told her I feel exactly the same way.

The only difference is that she’s in her early twenties, and I’m in my early fifties.

I’m not sure which is better. She’s had an entire lifetime full of nothing but the downsizing of her country, and the theft of her future. The only two presidents a person her age could have had any mature appreciation of were George W. Bush, the thief and liar, and Barack Obama, another thief and liar. She has never known an America that wasn’t reeling under the assault of Wall Street plutocrats and the kleptocrats they hire to do their bidding in Washington.

On the other hand, people her age could at most have suffered with the pain of being under this siege for a mere five years or so, unless they happen to have been astonishingly attentive and precocious preteens. My generation, on the other hand, has been living this nightmare for three solid decades now, through Republican abominations and – in many ways, worse – Democratic as well. We have known indisputably throughout this era that a better country is not just a pretty aspiration or a theoretical proposition. We know that because we once lived there. I’m glad I had that experience. But, that said, carrying around the heartache of observing our national suicide by greed for more than thirty years’ time has also been a painful, soul-numbing burden I wouldn’t wish on anyone....

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/18-9

[Demeter]

23. After a week like this one, on the personal level or the international one

I'm with Hotler.

I have no hope that sweet reason will have any influence over events.

I see no future that isn't covered in blood and destruction.

If that's what it's going to take, so be it. Cave man rules.

[Demeter]

24. Fresh Uganda Oil Find ‘Africa’s Biggest’

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29410.htm

14 Jan 2009 "The Times" - -Heritage Oil announced details of a large oil discovery in Uganda yesterday, which the company claimed could be the largest onshore discovery in sub-Saharan Africa.

Heritage said that its latest discovery – Giraffe1 – in the Lake Albert region, could total at least 400 million barrels of oil.

However, Paul Atherton, chief financial officer, told The Times that the wider field it was developing, dubbed Buffalo-Giraffe, had several “billions of barrels of oil in place”, although it was unclear how much of this would be recoverable.

He said that the field, which is 9,000 square kilometers in size – or six times the size of Greater London – was unquestionably the largest onshore discovery made in sub-Saharan Africa in at least 20 years, possibly ever...

[Fuddnik]

29. Can't have that falling into the Lord's Resistance Army hands, now can we.

Not when we've got our own brand of bible-thumping Family in charge of it.

[xchrom]

26. R.J. Reynolds plant workers vote against union rep

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_RJ_REYNOLDS_TOBACCO_UNION_VOTE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-21-09-04-07

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) -- A majority of production and maintenance workers for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. have voted against union representation, the company said Friday.

The subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc. said that a preliminary count of ballots cast show workers chose not to be represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.

Reynolds is the second-biggest U.S. cigarette company and makes Camel and Pall Mall brand products.

The Winston-Salem, N.C., company said the preliminary vote count stands at 686 against union representation and 556 for collective bargaining representation.

[Hotler]

33. What the fuck is wrong with those people???

Makes me wish the company would come out on monday and tell the workers that all production wages will be minimum wage. No more health benefits, no more vacation pay and it will cost them $25.00 a week to park in the company parking lot and there will be a $10.00 a month fee just for the privilege to work here. :banghead:

[Fuddnik]

34. They do their best to dumb them down.

The cultural and social centers in the Carolinas are the churches.

My dad and a friend were driving from SC to up north a couple of years ago, and they stopped for breakfast at a Hardees in NC. Inside, the executives of a local textile mill had all of the preachers in the area for breakfast, and telling them how evil unions were, and that they should tell their flocks to vote "No" in an upcoming union election.

I've talked to people in bars down there. One, a journeyman electrician who was making $9 an hour, about 10 years ago. I just couldn't explain to him the benefits of organizing a union.

[Hotler]

36. "a journeyman electrician who was making $9 an hour"

I repeat myself. :banghead: :banghead:

[DemReadingDU]

39. People have lost their critical thinking skills

Partly because of the education process, partly because of the techie gadgets that do everything nowadays.

It seems many people just can't think for themselves and rely on others to tell them everything.

As Hotler would say: I have no hope. I see no future.

[AnneD]

35. They already have an employment contract like that....

it is called the unpaid internship.

[Demeter]

38. What's wrong with people in general?

Not enough social Darwinism, I suppose.