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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ibexx who wrote (75274)	4/17/2001 11:52:19 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 99985

Good News(the equivalent of a tax cut)=Oil retreats as US stocks swell to 20-month highs SINGAPORE, April 18 (Reuters) - U.S. oil prices lost half a dollar on Wednesday as crude stocks in the United States swelled by seven million barrels to the highest levels in 20 months. Gasoline also took hefty losses of more than 1.5 cents a gallon, bringing prices off Tuesday's nine-month peak, after a smaller than forecast draw in inventories gave some relief to concerns of a supply crunch in the summer. U.S. benchmark light crude stood 50 cents off at $27.74 a barrel at 0156 GMT, having shed 55 cents in New York a day earlier to close at $28.24. Industry group the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a 7.3 million barrel build in U.S. crude stocks to 315.2 million barrels in the week ended April 13. The API releases weekly stocks' figures after the close of business each Tuesday. The Energy Information Administration -- the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy -- publishes similar inventory data each Wednesday. The API gains pushed U.S. crude stocks -- languishing at 25-year lows just over a month ago -- to the highest level since late August 1999 after rising 40 million barrels, nearly 15 percent, in five straight weeks of increases. U.S. crude tanks stand almost 11.6 million barrels above the same time last year, mainly because of continued strong imports into the world's biggest energy consumer. Refiners have been enticed to buy and store crude by a growing discount between prompt prices and forward values -- a market structure called contango. AMERICAN MOTORISTS GET SMALL CHEER The bearish API crude report was compounded by a small draw in U.S. gasoline stocks of 58,000 barrels, less than half of a forecast 1.3 million barrel fall. At 193 million barrels, however, gasoline inventories remain more than eight million barrels below last year's thin levels when pump prices hit record highs. Stocks of the cleaner-burning reformulated gasoline, which triggered last summer's price spike, showed a one million barrel year-on-year deficit, the API said. U.S. gasoline futures retreated $1.52 in electronic dealings in Asia to $1.035 per gallon. The API said utilisation rates at U.S. refineries jumped 2.3 percent last week to 92.6 percent, but oil markets are likely to remain sensitive to any glitches in production given gasoline's continued lean stocks. ``We've still got a problem with low gasoline supplies. We're only one or two refinery problems away from testing the high prices,'' said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Illinois. Low inventory, a rise in consumption and problems with restarting at several U.S. refineries closed for scheduled maintenance have buoyed motor fuel prices in recent weeks. Gasoline hit $1.0505 a gallon on Tuesday, the highest since June 2000, after an explosion all but shut Conoco's Killingholme refinery in Britain, which exports about 60 percent of its production to the United States. IRAQI CRUDE EXPORTS STAY STRONG Also bearish for the market, the United Nations posted figures on Tuesday showing a rise of 190,000 barrels per day (bpd) in Iraqi crude exports in the week to April 13. The U.N., which monitors Iraq's crude sales under sanctions slapped on Baghdad after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, said Iraq exported 2.48 million bpd in the last seven days. The four-week average fell 22,000 bpd to 2.22 million bpd after climbing to the highest level since early November during the previous week. Rising U.S. inventories and higher Iraqi supplies will provide food for thought to the OPEC producers' cartel, due to meet on June 5-6 to review oil market fundamentals. The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has cut output twice this year by a total 2.5 million bpd to avoid any glut of supply during the seasonal demand dip in the second quarter and because of concerns a widespread economic slowdown may dent oil demand. OPEC producers, who last year enjoyed the strongest oil prices in two decades, have said they will cut output again if prices for a reference basket of crudes fall below $22 a barrel. The group has a target range for the basket between $22 and $28, with a preferred level at $25. The basket stands at $25.52. ``It may well become the situation that OPEC will have to play catch up with prices if inventories continue to rise,'' said Simon Games-Thomas at Rothschild & Sons in Sydney. ``Inventory builds will have the inevitable impact on prices, with OPEC having lost its tight control with the increase in stocks,'' said Games-Thomas in a daily report. ^

To: Ibexx who wrote (75274)	4/17/2001 11:56:47 PM
From: Dave Kiernan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

INTC's Q1 profits were down over 80% and warned that coming quarters will continue to be affected by the economic slowdown. Even with an 80% earnings hit, the result beat the greatly lowered expectations. The result was an after hours pop of over 10%. This is an interesting result. It may suggest that the smartest corporate execs have taken the opportunity to "overwarn" - deciding the take the hit during generally bad times to position themselves to beat estimates when things turn back up. It's a variation of the trick that companies like MSFT have been using for years to manipulate analysts toward earnings estimates that they know they can beat. We may never know for sure whether INTC purposely overwarned, but the idea gives many hope that perhaps things will be better than expected for at least the better managed blue chips. my comment: and hopes that Big Blue can maintain their 'Accounting Accumen.' 3mtinc.com