Re: Nnuut's Account Talk
Good advise, I think! There is (MORE)
Market watchers will be keeping an eye on the release on U.S. gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic activity. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com are expecting the first take on GDP to show the economy grew at a 3.2 percent annual pace in the second quarter after posting modest growth of 0.7 percent the prior quarter.
A key number in the report will be the so called core PCE deflator, which measures prices paid by consumers after food and energy are stripped out. That reading was up 2.4 percent on an annual basis in the first quarter.
Hogan said that there are some who might be spooked by a better-than-expected GDP reading because it would diminish the chance for the Federal Reserve to cut rates by the end of the year, as investors are now expecting.
Hogan argued that a strong GDP report would be good news for battered stocks, while a weak number would be bad for the U.S. economy and corporate earnings going forward.
But he said he doesn't know if markets will follow his thinking in the current environment, and that the market's first reaction could be to sell off if the GDP report misses forecasts in either direction.
"I think we would be hard pressed to find something in the GDP that would be too strong right now, other than a higher than expected core PCE," he said. "But I definitely think we're in an environment where we'll shoot first and ask questions later."
On the earnings front,
Chevron (
Charts,
Fortune 500) is due to report improved quarterly earnings before the market open. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call expect the oil firm to post earnings of $2.30 a share on revenue of $50.4 billion.
On Thursday, No. 1 U.S. oil company Exxon Mobil posted improved per-share earnings that fell short of forecasts, helping to feed the drop in the Dow.
The European Union's top
antitrust regulator charged Friday that
Intel (
Charts,
Fortune 500) tried to use its huge market share to push smaller rival
Advanced Micro Devices (
Charts,
Fortune 500) out of the central processing unit (CPU) business.
Shares of Dow component Intel still gained 0.9 percent in early trading in Frankfurt, while AMD gained 1.1 percent.
Google (
Charts,
Fortune 500)
signed a deal with
Sprint Nextel (
Charts,
Fortune 500) to build services to run on Sprint's planned WiMAX high-speed wireless network, which represents Google's closest alliance with a major U.S. mobile service provider.
After the close Thursday, leading biotech
Amgen (
Charts,
Fortune 500) reported a better-than- expected
gain in earnings excluding special items, helping to lift its shares 2 percent in after-hours trading, and were up 1.3 percent in Frankfurt early Friday.
Treasuries rose in early trading after being lower early, taking the yield on the 10-year note to 4.76 percent from 4.78 percent after a
large surge Thursday fed by the selloff in stocks. The
dollar was higher against the euro and the yen.
Oil prices rose in early trading, as U.S. light crude gained 14 cents to $75.09 a barrel in electronic trading.
A look at more news and numbers ahead of the U.S. open
http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/27/markets/stockswatch_ny/index.htm?cnn=yes