Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Wednesday Watch

Evening Headlines 
Bloomberg: 
  • EU Convenes on Greece as Samaras Coalition Squabbles. Euro-area finance chiefs will try to shunt Greece’s bailout plan back on track today as officials split on whether the country needs another debt writedown and Greek politicians squabble over further austerity measures. With recession biting, policy makers are again seeking ways to keep Greece in the euro and avert an exit that former Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann said would cost “several hundred billion” euros. Finance ministers will hold a conference call at 12:30 p.m. Brussels time and may release a statement afterwards. European officials are grappling over ways to fill Greece’s financing gap two weeks before a decision is due on whether to give the country a further round of emergency funds. While German Chancellor Angela Merkel has signaled her desire to stand behind Greece’s euro membership, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s coalition is still at odds over the steps needed to secure more money.
  • Monti Government Runs Into Rising Political Risks: Euro Credit. Prime Minister Mario Monti is trying to counter rising risks for Italy's public finances after an anti-austerity movement emerged as the largest political force in Sicily and his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, threatened to withdraw support for the government. 
  • Hollande Faces Competitiveness Calls Amid Job Cuts. Renault SA (RNO) says if President Francois Hollande wants more cars built in France, he needs to tackle the country’s high labor costs and rigid work rules.
  • Hungary Retail Debt-Sale Plan Threatens to Drain Bank Deposits. Hungary’s plan to add euro bonds to household debt offerings while aid talks stall risks starving local banks of deposits and may prolong the second recession in four years, policy makers and investors in Budapest said.
  • China Stocks Fall to One-Month Low as PetroChina Drops on Profit. Chinese stocks declined, dragging the benchmark index to a one-month low, as lower-than-estimated profit at PetroChina Co. overshadowed higher earnings at Industrial Bank Co. PetroChina, the country’s biggest oil company, sank 0.7 percent. Beiqi Foton Motor Co. (600166), China’s largest commercial- vehicle maker, slumped the most since July 2011 after reporting a loss.
  • Gasoline Supply Seen at 1990 Low on Sandy. Gasoline stockpiles on the U.S. East Coast may sink to the lowest level since at least 1990 as Hurricane Sandy moves ashore, curtailing fuel production and distribution, based on Energy Department data. Refineries accounting for 94 percent of regional processing capacity shut or reduced rates before Sandy, the largest tropical storm on record in the Atlantic, approached the East Coast yesterday. Colonial Pipeline Co., which operates the largest link between Gulf Coast refiners and East Coast distributors, planned to shut its main line delivering fuel to Philadelphia and New York Harbor late yesterday as customers shuttered operations. Prices had jumped 5.9 percent in three days, breaking the longest losing streak since 1986, as the storm headed directly for the heart of East Coast fuel refining and distribution. Gasoline inventories in the central Atlantic area are already 16 percent below a year earlier. Sandy threatens to flood and disrupt power at refineries and terminals that account for one- third of U.S. finished gasoline production, according to BNP Paribas SA.
  • New York Subway System Faces Weeks to Recover From Storm. New York’s subway system may take weeks of work and tens of billions of dollars to be restored to full service as officials assess the toll from floods, hurricane-force winds and electrical damage that crippled the most populous U.S. city’s transportation hub. “I can say unequivocally that the MTA last night faced a disaster as devastating as it has ever faced in its history,” Metropolitan Transit Authority Chairman Joe Lhota said at a news conference today.
  • Hotel Recovery Hurt as Sandy Causes Cancellations, Damage. Revenue growth at U.S. hotels, already hurt by slowing traveler demand, will be hampered further by Sandy, the superstorm that blacked out much of southern Manhattan and flooded areas along the East Coast. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. and real estate investment trusts including Host Hotels & Resorts Inc., owner of the Westin New York Grand Central, and Hilton Times Square landlord Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. are among the companies that probably will be most affected by Sandy because of their properties in the U.S. Northeast, said Nikhil Bhalla, a senior lodging analyst at FBR & Co. in Arlington, Virginia. Room-revenue growth was “generally soft through the first three weeks of the month,” before Sandy hit, Bhalla said in an e-mail. “So I expect results for the last week of October to be notably soft.”
Wall Street Journal: 
  • Live Updates: Hurricane Sandy.
  • Questions Cloud Market Reopening. Critics Fault Wall Street for a Lack of Disaster Preparedness; Friction Over NYSE's Backup Plan. U.S. stock markets were preparing to open in the wake of Sandy on Wednesday, ending a shutdown that left investors unable to trade for two days and sparked recriminations over whether Wall Street should have been better prepared to handle the impact of such a storm. The New York Stock Exchange said Tuesday that it plans to open as usual at 9:30 a.m. and that its trading floor and headquarters in lower Manhattan were "fully operational" despite widespread blackouts and flooding in that part of the city. The Nasdaq Stock Market and other exchanges will open as well. Bond markets will follow suit.
  • Apple(AAPL) Shake-Up Signals Tim Cook Era.
  • M.B.A.s Rethink Wall Street. Repeated cutbacks have dulled Wall Street's luster for some prospective Masters of the Universe, in the latest reflection of the gloom overhanging the finance industry. 
  • Sudan, After Blast, Greets Iran Ships. Iranian naval commanders met Tuesday with their counterparts in Sudan to discuss joint training exercises, in the wake of explosions at a weapons factory that Sudan blamed on Israeli jets.
  • In Vancouver, Home Sales Hit the Brakes. After a blistering, multiyear run that saw ramshackle bungalows fetch seven-figure sums, one of the hottest real-estate markets in North America seems to be cooling, damped in part by government changes meant to deflate what many policy makers saw as the start of a bubble.
  • Caesars Packs Up in Macau, Leaving Spoils to Its Rivals. "When you have that much capital devoted to an asset that's not delivering its potential, you need to consider other options," says Steven Tight, the company's president of international development
  • Some Investors Likely to Face New Tax Bite. Those Dabbling in Real Estate Could See Surtax on Rental Income Starting Jan. 1; Just Who Qualifies Is in Question. 
  • David Gamage: ObamaCare's Costs to the Working Class. Perverse incentives will make part-time work more attractive than a better-paying full-time job.
  • Big Storm Opportunism. Did you know Hurricane Sandy favors higher marginal tax rates?
CNBC: 
Zero Hedge: 
Business Insider: 
Washington Times: 
Gallop: 
Rasmussen Reports: 
Financial Times:   
  • Chinese Cos. Report Increase in Unpaid Bills in 3Q. 66% of Chinese cos. said in 3Q financial results that unpaid bills had increased in the 3-mo. period from a yr earlier, citing its own analysis of S&P Capital IQ data. Sany Heavy reported accounts receivables were 83% higher as of the end of 3Q.
Telegraph:
FAZ:
  • The German government will swiftly implement a European Court of Justice ruling on the taxation of dividends of foreign corporations that will cause tax revenue losses. Federal and state governments face tax revenue losses of about 1.5 billion euros each in 2013 and 2014 and 600 million euros each in 2015 and 2016.
Xinhua:
  • China will use the latest international benchmark to revise China's gdp calculation, citing Peng Zhilong, an official from the nation's statistics bureau.
Securities Times:  
  • Regulators may allow brokers to sell credit default swaps and other derivatives, citing people familiar with a meeting between regulators and Goldman Sachs China.
Evening Recommendations 
  • None of note
Night Trading
  • Asian equity indices are -.25% to +.75% on average.
  • Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 123.0 -2.5 basis points.
  • Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 96.50 -.5 basis point.
  • FTSE-100 futures +.01%.
  • S&P 500 futures +.13%.
  • NASDAQ 100 futures -.23%.
Morning Preview Links

Earnings of Note

Company/Estimate
  • (ETN)/1.09
  • (H)/.17
  • (RDC)/.48
  • (MA)/5.92
  • (HES)/1.19
  • (PWR)/.39
  • (IPGP)/.79
  • (COCO)/.04
  • (CLX)/.96
  • (STE)/.51
  • (CMI)/1.83
  • (AGCO)/1.02
  • (MGM)/-.17
  • (GM)/.60
  • (WCG)/1.47
  • (AMT)/.74
  • (CAM)/.88
  • (CRUS)/.71
  • (ALL)/1.13
  • (HTZ)/.61
  • (IPI)/.35
  • (TSO)/.34
  • (FSLR)/1.07
  • (RGR)/.80
  • (V)/1.50
  • (WMB)/.27
  • (MET)/1.28
  • (PZZA)/.54
  • (MUR)/1.20
  • (BMC)/.87
  • (BWA)/1.19
  • (SPW)/1.06  
Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
  • The 3Q Employment Cost Index is estimated to rise +.5% versus a +.5% gain in 2Q.
9:45 am EST
  • Chicago Purchasing Manager for October is estimated to rise to 51.0 versus 49.7 in September.
 10:30 am EST
  • Bloomberg consensus estimates call for a weekly crude oil inventory build of +1,750,000 barrels versus a +5,896,000 barrel gain the prior week. Distillate inventories are estimated to fall by -1,400,000 barrels versus a -646,000 barrel decline the prior week. Gasoline supplies are estimated to fall by -500,000 barrels versus a +1,439,000 barrel gain the prior week. Finally, Refinery Utilization is estimated to rise by +.13% versus a -.2% decline the prior week.
Upcoming Splits
  • None of note
Other Potential Market Movers
  • The Fed's Williams speaking, France/Germany Bond Auctions, Germany retail sales data, Eurozone inflation data, Eurozone unemployment data, Canada GDP, China Manufacturing PMI, NAPM-Milwaukee report for October and the weekly MBA applications report could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by commodity and financial shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly higher and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing modestly lower. The Portfolio is 25% net long heading into the day.

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