RBS Earnings
Slow day today ahead of unemployment release. RBS earnings caught my attention.
Archive for November, 2009
UNG problem at UUP
Divergence yesterday between PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish and index that it tracks Dollar Index (DXY) as fund manager used up SEC registered shares. Similar to United States Natural Gas earlier this year, covered on Tainted Alpha. DB Commodity Services LLC filled to the U.S. SEC to register 100,000,000 additional shares in order to meet investor demand. Reuters story:Deutsche Bank unit files for 100 mln new UUP shares. Also, more important large volume in call options, looks someone is looking to profit on short covering/squeeze.
Sunshine Again
A lot of action on the earnings losses and economic announcements front. So, let’s start. Initial jobless claims came at 512k vs. 523k consensus and 530k the week before. Finally some improvement, but still at some 170k job losses a month.
Markets, off-course, cheered the data. All major indexes ended with nice gains of a 2% and more. We will see if the positive action continues after the tomorrows unemployment figures. Could be, consensus on non-farm payrolls is pretty low at 175k job loses, I think we could manage to beet that.
U.S. Petroleum Weekly – 05 November 2009
I will today start with U.S. petroleum weekly which I will prepare every week based on the the new EIA data.
Most widely followed category – crude oil stocks came yesterday at -4 million barrels vs. consensus of 0.8 million barrels increase. A surprising figure on upon first impression, one warranting crude oil price increase, but if we review the the data in detail we will find that the fundamentals of petroleum supply and demand have not changed and the oil price rise is not supported by supply and demand fundamentals.
FOMC Statement 04 Nov 2009
Nothing new material in the statement. FED press release.
Higlihts:
Conditions in financial markets were roughly unchanged, on balance, over the intermeeting period. Activity in the housing sector has increased over recent months. Household spending appears to be expanding but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, sluggish income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Businesses are still cutting back on fixed investment and staffing, though at a slower pace; they continue to make progress in bringing inventory stocks into better alignment with sales.
Gold vs. U.S. Dollar Decoupled
…at least for one trading session. Belisarius was occupied with his new firm in last few days so his blog suffered a little; now he’s back fully operational. Back to the theme; yesterday someone took a large position in gold and surprisingly moved the precious metal up on a positive dollar day. Media and blogosphere are full of various theories and reasons for the action. From India’s central bank buying MMF gold (Bloomberg story: IMF Sells Gold to India, First Sale in Nine Years) to “informed” buyer taking the position ahead of today FED interest rate decision/statement and rumors of big financial institution in trouble.
Rally Stop
We have had a nice shoot up yesterday after the ISM Manufacturing Index release, but the gains flattened during the day. The ISM Manufacturing Index came at 55.7 vs. 53 consensus and 52.6 last month. It’s a diffusion index, I don’t care really, but markets react sometimes.
New Week Intro Nov 02
Important U.S. earnings this week:
* Monday: Sysco (SYY), Loews (L), Chesapeake Energy (CHK), Anadarko Petroleum (APC), Consolidated Edison (ED), Ford Motor (F)