MARK TO MARKET: Everything Is Second Fiddle To Iraq
24 Jan 07:30
By Jim Murphy
A Dow Jones Newswires Column
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--On Monday, Hans Blix, the chief U.S. weapons inspector,
reports to the United Nations Security Council on how his team is faring in its
hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Next Friday, Tony Blair, the U.K. Prime Minister, lands in the U.S. where
he'll go to Camp David to confer with George W. Bush, the U.S. president,
presumably to decide whether the U.K. and the U.S. will go it alone in making
war on the forces of Saddam Hussein.
I believe all of us know what that decision will be and that we know, whether
we support it or not, that a U.S./U.K. war with Iraq will come sooner, rather
than later.
You know me. I've little respect for ex-post facto market commentary. Even
so, it's quite clear that those who hold that a U.S. economic recovery,
including a stock-market recovery, cannot proceed without a "resolution" in
Iraq are absolutely correct.
The Blix Report on Monday and the Blair-Bush meeting on Friday are the mighty
bookends of next week's markets.
Let us not forget also the Senate's confirmation hearing Tuesday morning for
John Snow, President Bush's choice for Treasury Secretary, and the two-day
meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, which will conclude Wednesday at
2:15 p.m. EST (1915 GMT) with the announcement that interest rates will remain
as they are.
President Bush delivers the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.
The day after the Blix Report, what, if anything, will the president have to
say about a war with Iraq?
Good Time For Business
As the workweek closes, companies reporting quarterly results have been
reduced to a manageable handful of 25 or so, including, before the 9:30 a.m.
EST opening bell on Wall Street, Archer Daniels Midland, FPL Group, and
Lockheed Martin, and, after the 4 p.m. EST closing bell, Raytheon.
Archer Daniels Midland's second-fiscal-quarter results will have at least one
interesting story to tell. The company is expected to report earnings per share
five cents below the 23 cents reported for 2Q a year earlier, but revenues are
expected to have increased by nearly $1.3 billion in the latest quarter. If so,
how so?
As the winds of a war with Iraq pick up in intensity, we are reminded that
this is a good time to be in the aerospace and defense businesses, as are, most
prominently, two of today's reporters, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed Martin is expected to have earned 80-81 cents a share in its fourth
quarter ("excluding items"), up sharply from 49 cents a year earlier, or 67
cents a share, depending on what items are excluded or included.
Raytheon, the Thomson First Call and Multex analysts surveys agree, will
report EPS ("excluding items") of 65 cents after the bell, also up solidly from
40 cents a year earlier.
Bigger Than Both Of Us
The aim of advertising and marketing is to convince consumers that in using a
service or consuming a product one is not just doing that but that one is also
tapping into something far larger, call it the zeitgeist of an era. (I couldn't
wait any longer again to put the word zeitgeist into play, even if I had to
abuse it.)
So that when one drinks a can of Coca-Cola, one is aware of a connection far
deeper than to a can of soda. One's subconscious is hooked on a feeling one
doesn't get from draining a can of Supermarket House Brand tropical punch.
You'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Me too, Jack.
On a more whimsical level, but certainly playing the same game as Coca-Cola
and the Marlboro Man, Air New Zealand has tied its perception by the public to
the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, a great lot of which was filmed in New
Zealand. (The third movie is in the can but hasn't been released yet.)
Or as a press release said:
"Air New Zealand will unveil Friday the second of its The Lord of the Rings
themed flying billboards - a Boeing 767-300 depicting the epic love story of
key film characters `Aragorn' and `Arwen.'
"The aircraft shows the characters, played by Viggo Mortensen and Liv Tyler,
set against the stunning backdrop of the Remarkables mountain range near
Queenstown, New Zealand.
"Spearheading an ambitious two-year campaign to promote Air New Zealand as
the `Airline to Middle-earth,' the second The Lord of the Rings aircraft will
carry the airline's tourism message to almost every corner of the globe."
Spamming The Globe
There's nothing sacred about an e-mail address. One merely has to check out a
day's worth of spam to know that.
"Identity theft" appears to be the most popular white-collar crime today.
Sometimes, however, your identity can be given away before it's stolen.
Take this story in Friday's edition of The Washington Post: Network Solutions
Inc. said it will apologize to tens of thousands of customers whose e-mail
addresses the company inadvertently released.
"A few thousand" Network Solutions customers received e-mail messages that
contained more than 85,000 e-mail addresses of other Network Solutions
customers, a spokesman for the parent company VeriSign Inc. told the Post.
"Some customers whose names were included in the mailing said they feared a
deluge of unsolicited commercial e-mail as a result of the gaffe," the Post
story said.
Apres gaffe, le deluge, no doubt, but one needn't have one's e-address
inadvertently blurted out to get smothered in spam every day.
(Jim Murphy can be reached at (201) 938-2145 or by e-mail at
Jim.Murphy@DowJones.Com)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-24-03 0730ET |
