From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market headed into the Thanksgiving holiday on a low note, as investors sold equities and bought bonds in a flight to quality on Wednesday.
The risk aversion trade is apparent in the yen's strength and the rally in U.S. Treasuries where the yield on the 10-year note dropped below 4.00% for the first time since 2005, before finishing the day at 4.01%.
There is also a concern among investors about holding long positions going into the Thanksgiving holiday, which played a role in the selling pressure.
A late-day recovery effort was staged, but the Dow and S&P ran into resistance at their intraday peaks, and eventually finished the day at their intraday lows. The Nasdaq, for its part, weathered the late-day selling efforts better, to finish well above its intraday lows.
Weakness was broad-based with all ten of the major economic sectors ending the day in the red. The beleaguered financial sector (-2.2%) finished the day as the main laggard, as it had yesterday.
Strikingly, the S&P 500 Retailing Index (-0.3%) and consumer discretionary sector (-1.0%) outperformed on a relative basis in the wake of several disappointing earnings reports from retailers this morning.
There were a few economic releases of note on Wednesday.
New claims for unemployment for the week ended Nov. 30 fell to 330,000 from 341,000 the week before. That is almost exactly in line with the four week moving average of 329,750. The news won't attract much market attention, but it does serve as a reminder that businesses are not acting in recessionary fashion.
October Leading Indicators fell to -0.5%, compared to last month's reading of 0.3%. Economists expected the reading to come in at -0.3%. The Leading Indicators report is, for the most part, a compendium of previously announced economic indicators. There was a slight increase in selling pressure immediately following the report.
The November University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was revised to 76.1 from 75.0. The revision was mostly ignored by the stock market.
In commodity trading, crude oil hit a new all-time high of $99.29 per barrel overnight, but subsequently declined into negative territory ahead of the government's weekly inventory stats. Crude inventories showed a draw of 1.07 million against expectations for a build of 750,000. Despite the bullish report, crude oil traded in a volatile manner finishing the day down 0.9% to $97.20.
In observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, all U.S. markets are closed on Thursday (11/22). On Friday (11/23) the stock market and bond market reopen for a shortened day, closing at 13:00 ET. DJ30 -211.10 NASDAQ -34.66 SP500 -22.93 NASDAQ Dec/Adv/Vol 2082/903/1.94 bln NYSE Dec/Adv/Vol 2245/1023/1.35 bln
6:23AM ASE Test appoints independent financial adviser (ASTSF) 13.98 : Co refers to the proposed acquisition by Advanced Semiconductor Engineering of all the ordinary shares of ASE Test which ASE doesn't directly or indirectly own through a scheme of arrangement. The directors of the co who are considered independent for the purposes of making a recommendation on the Proposed Scheme have today, pursuant to the requirements of the Code, appointed ANZ Singapore as independent financial adviser to advise them on the Proposed Scheme.
11:37 am LTX Corp: Stifel Nicolaus reiterates Buy. Target $8 to $6. Stifel notes on Tuesday, LTXX reported 1Q08 earnings results of $29.6 mln in rev and a pro forma loss of $0.04, excluding options (a loss of $0.06, including options), below firm's rev ests of 30.6 mln, but above their pro forma loss est of $0.05, excluding options (a loss of $0.07, including options). However, they continue to believe the stock has been way oversold given the improved co fundamentals when compared to previous cycles. Firm believes the co has made significant strides in terms of improving its business model and they are seeing the initial positive impacts of new share wins with some leading IDMs outside of its largest customer, Texas Instruments. Firm cuts tgt to $6 from $8.
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