Looks like it will open unchanged from yesterday:
Wednesday November 26, 7:19 am Eastern Time
U.S. stocks in London mixed, golds lose shine
LONDON, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Commodity-sensitive companies, such as oil and gold, highlighted trading of U.S. stocks in London Wednesday ahead of an expected firmer Wall Street open.
The Dow industrials, which finished 41.03 points higher on Tuesday at 7,808.95, were expected to open about 20 points up, based on stock index futures trading, dealers said.
December S&P futures gained 3.2 points in Globex trading by 1150 GMT, while U.S. long bond futures slipped 10/32.
Trading was quiet, however, as investors will have to digest a plateful of economic data and U.S. financial markets are closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving Day holiday.
''The market is bouncing a bit on the non-Asian sell-off and the techs are also looking a little better,'' one London dealer said. ''I would expect (the Dow) to be about 20 points higher.''
Shares in gold companies edged lower with a drop in the gold price to under $300 an ounce in London, the first time in 12-1/2 years it has fallen below the psychological $300 level.
Concerns about the sales from central bank reserves have hammered the gold market all year as European governments jockeyed for position ahead of the establishment of the European Central Bank (ECB) and European Monetary Union the next two years.
Shares in Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX - news) slipped $1/4 to $16-3/4 and Echo Bay Mines (AMEX:ECO - news) fell 2/16 to $2-9/16, dealers said.
Leading oil company shares recovered some of their lost ground in New York that was blamed on a drop in world oil prices. A report on U.S. oil inventories and OPEC's meeting in Jakarta, where Saudi Arabia is trying to build a consensus on raising the group's production, weighed on crude prices.
Exxon Corp (NYSE:XON - news) shares edged up 1/4 to $61-3/8 and Atlantic Richfield Co (NYSE:ARC - news) gained 5/16 to $82.
Elsewhere, Novell Inc (Nasdaq:NOVL - news) shares were unchanged at $9-7/32, dealers said, even after the software company reported better than expected profits for its fourth quarter.
Novell said net income for the three months to October 31 was $7 million, or two cents a share, one cent above the consensus of Wall Street analysts, according to First Call. |
