Today's prudentbear! -->
Market Summary June 13, 2001
Posted Daily Between 5 and 6:30 PM EST
by Lance Lewis
Kraft IPOs And Yesterday’s Buyers Quickly Disappear
Asia tried to rally last night but finished back down in the red as Japan continues to slide back to its March low. Europe managed to bounce back a percent and a half this morning, and the US futures were a little higher. We opened down and then bounced a bit before returning back to the low. From there we slowly walked up to our high of the day, and the remainder of the day was spent slowly sliding back near yesterday’s lows. Volume was just OK (1.1 bil on the NYSE and 1.5 bil on the NASDAQ.) Breadth was negative by a hair on the NYSE and slightly negative on the NASDAQ. Big winners were hard to find, but the golds rallied a bit as the HUI rose a percent. Big losers were in the Internuts as the INX lost 5 percent.
Kraft (KFT) got out the door and priced at $31 last night. The stock opened at $31.50, traded up a bit and then spent the rest of the day below the open and went out at $31.25. Let’s see how many days it takes before it trades below $31. Tech started the day a little stronger. We had some more tech conferences going on today where companies were making comments, and most of them appeared to be encouraging and along the lines of “we sure hope things get better, and we hope you do too.” Semi equipment maker KLAC reaffirmed their previously lowered guidance at one of these conferences. The equipment shares yawned at the news and ended the day down a percent or two depending on who you looked at. The semis performed about the same with the SOX ending down 2 percent. LU’s debt was downgraded to junk status this morning by S&P, and LU reacted by falling 9 percent. Other than that, it was just another day at the track except that the majority of the horses were losers today in tech. Financials were lower again. The BKX lost half a percent, and the XBD lost 2 percent as the brokers continue to “act” like death. That’s not a great sign for the stock market as a whole. The GE/HON intrigue continued again today as talks with EU regulators still aren’t going well. GE ended down 2 percent on the day to give back most of yesterday’s gain. Retail sales for May came in this morning up a tiny .1 percent. The Fed’s Beige Book confirmed what we already know: “Most districts report that economic activity was little changed or decelerating in April and May.” Retailers were off a little on all that data as the RLX fell a percent. The utilities continue to slide as the UTY and UTIL both fell 3 percent today. With all the other issues currently surrounding the utilities I don’t know whether this is saying anything about interest rates or not, but a further break down in the utilities is certainly not bullish regardless.
Oil fell 34 cents. The XOI and OSX both traded higher early this morning but gave it all back to close down a percent or so. Gold rose 50 cents, and 1-month lease rates slipped ever so slightly to just below 2%. The HUI rose a percent. The US dollar index slipped again today, falling back to just above 119. The euro managed to climb back above 85 cents, and treasuries were a little lower ahead of tomorrow’s PPI report.
Whether Kraft-related or simply expiration gyrations, yesterday’s late day recovery obviously didn’t have much behind it. Tomorrow, we get the PPI report. It’ll be interesting to see how the bond and gold markets react to the data if at all. Investor’s Intelligence numbers released today were really quite amazing. Bulls rose slightly to 49% bulls and bears slipping slightly to 29.6%. Hope rings eternal… |
