Re: DJIA up or down

by **Cals** Sat 21 Sep 2013, 02:18

U.S. Stocks Drop as Investors Weigh Stimulus, Shutdown
By Lu Wang - Sep 21, 2013 2:05 AM GMT+0800

U.S. stocks fell for a second day, after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index hit a record this week, as concerns grew about the timing of Federal Reserve stimulus cuts and political wrangling over federal spending.

AK Steel Holding Corp. (AKS) plunged 7.5 percent, leading declines among steelmakers, after predicting a third-quarter loss. Rockwell Collins Inc. sank 6.2 percent after its projection missed analysts’ estimates. Darden Restaurants Inc. dropped 6.4 percent after earnings trailed forecast.

Enlarge image[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

20:53

Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard talks about the central bank's decision not to slow bond buying, the state of the U.S. economy and inflation. Bullard speaks with Tom Keene, Sara Eisen, Anna Edwards and Michael McKee on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance." (Source: Bloomberg)

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

8:32

Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer and co-chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management Co., talks about Federal Reserve policy, U.S. economic outlook and investment strategy. He speaks with Betty Liu and Michael McKee on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)
The S&P 500 fell 0.6 percent to 1,711.99 at 2:04 p.m. in New York after earlier rising as much as 0.2 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU) lost 120.74 points, or 0.8 percent, to 15,515.18.
“It’s probably a little confusing to the market what’s coming out of the Fed,” John Kvantas, a San Antonio, Texas-basedexecutive director who helps manage more than $16 billion at USAA Investments, said in a phone interview. “Maybe the Fed is trying to send a message that ‘yeah we didn’t taper, but it doesn’t mean we will never taper and maybe actually will taper still quite soon.’”
Trading in S&P 500 stocks was 34 percent above the 30-day average at this time of day as futures and options contracts expire in a process known as quadruple witching that can lead to unpredictable price swings. Announced index changes, such as the addition of Visa Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Nike Inc. to the Dow and the S&P 500’s inclusion of Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Ametek Inc., also take effect after the markets close.
More Evidence
The S&P 500 has climbed 1.4 percent this week, continuing a rebound from its worst month since May 2012 to reach a record on Sept. 18 after the central bank unexpectedly refrained from reducing monetary stimulus. The Federal Open Market Committee said it wants more evidence of an economic recovery before paring its bond purchases. The stimulus helped boost the equity index 155 percent higher since March 2009.
The Fed is now expected to begin tapering asset purchases in December, with 24 of 41 economists surveyed Sept. 18-19 saying the central bank won’t take the first step in slowing its $85 billion in monthly bond buying until then.
Fed Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard , a voter on policy this year who has backed the bond buying, said earlier today the decision not to taper was a close call and “small” cuts are possible next month. Policy makers meet Oct. 29-30.
‘Let’s Wait’
“Weaker data came in,” Bullard said on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg Surveillance” withTom Keene and Michael McKee. “That was a borderline decision,” and “the committee came down on the side of, ‘Let’s wait.’” With inflation low, Bullard said, “we can afford to be patient.”
Kansas City Fed President Esther George, who was the lone dissenter in the last FOMC meeting, said today at the Manhattan Institute for Policy that she sees “substantial” progress in the labor market. She said policy makers’ decision to maintain the pace of bond purchases “created confusion, created a disconnect.”
The debate on when to cut stimulus and by how much has whipsawed stocks since May, when Fed officials first indicated reductions could start this year. The S&P 500 (SPX) tumbled 5.8 percent from a record on May 21 through June 24. It rebounded 8.7 percent to close at a fresh high on Aug. 2 before slumping 4.6 percent as investors increasingly anticipated cuts at the September meeting. The gauge rallied 5.8 percent from that Aug. 27 low to its latest record.
Government Shutdown
Investors are also watching the political wrangling over the approaching limit on federal spending. Government funding expires Oct. 1 and the Treasury is expected to exhaust its ability to borrow funds in mid-October, when it will hit the statutory debt limit.
The U.S. House voted today to finance the federal government through mid-December and choke off funding for President Barack Obama’s health-care law, setting up a showdown with the Senate and the White House. The Senate will consider its version of the funding measure next week. The White House said Obama would veto the House bill.
“When you look at political uncertainty and a fight going forward and the government really faces a shutdown, I don’t know how that can be construed as a positive in the market’s mind,” Bill Schultz, chief investment officer who oversees about $1.1 billion at McQueen Ball & Associates in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, said by phone. “If anything, it just means potentially less economic activity.”
Barclays Projection
The Fed’s decision to maintain the pace of stimulus prompted Barclays Plc to boost its estimate for the S&P 500 to 1,800, the highest 2013 projection among Wall Street equity strategists.
“‘Lower for longer’ monetary policy is more probable than we believed a week ago,” Barry C. Knapp, the firm’s head of U.S. equity strategy, wrote in a note today.
The new forecast implies a 4.5 percent gain from the close of 1,722.34 yesterday and tops the average strategist projection of 1,706, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Knapp had previously said the S&P 500 would finish 2013 at 1,600.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (VIX), the gauge of S&P 500 options prices known as the VIX, added 1 percent to 13.29, rebounding from a one-month low yesterday. The measure has declined 27 percent this year.
‘Trend Higher’
“The market, where we are, could be more volatile around key economic data points,” Sam Turner, a fund manager with Richmond, Virginia-based Riverfront Investment Group LLC, said in a phone interview. “Even through volatility could increase, we suspect the trend will still be higher. What the Fed has communicated is that they won’t pull the IV from the patient until the patient can walk on its own.”
Riverfront manages almost $4 billion and has been buying stocks since the August retreat.
Reports next week on data from second-quarter gross domestic product to July housing prices and August sales of new homes will help investors gauge the pace of growth. There are no economic reports scheduled today.
All 10 S&P 500 main industries retreated. Utility and telephone stocks, which offer more than 4.1 percent of their price in dividends for the highest payout among 10 groups, slipped the most, losing at least 1.4 percent, amid concern rising bond yields may curb demand for equity income.
Housing, Steel
The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index slipped 3 percent, with all its 11 members falling.
AK Steel slid 7.5 percent to $4.11. The steelmaker predicted its loss in the third quarter will be 22 cents to 27 cents a share, which includes a 9-cent loss related to a furnace outage in Middletown, Ohio.
U.S. Steel Corp., the largest U.S. producer of the metal, also fell, losing 4.1 percent to $20.31.
Rockwell Collins (COL) sank 6.2 percent to $69.67. The maker of airplane cockpit instruments forecast revenue in fiscal 2014 will be no more than $4.60 billion. That missed the average analyst estimate of $4.93 billion in a Bloomberg survey.
Darden Restaurants dropped 6.4 percent to $46.15. The company’s first-quarter profit trailed analysts’ estimates amid declining sales at its Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains.
Among Dow additions, Visa climbed 0.3 percent to $195.30, Goldman Sachs slipped 1.1 percent to $165.95 and Nike lost 1 percent to $60.81. They will replace Hewlett-Packard Co., which rose 0.5 percent to $21.42, and Alcoa Inc. and Bank of America Corp, which fell 1.5 percent to $8.31 and 0.6 percent to $14.53, respectively.
Vertex retreated 0.8 percent to $75.66 while Ametek declined 0.9 percent to $45.61 before being added to the S&P 500 after the close. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and SAIC Inc., both of which will exit the benchmark index, dropped 3 percent to $3.83 and 1.4 percent to $15.06, respectively.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lu Wang in New York at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Sun 22 Sep 2013, 19:02

Published: Saturday September 21, 2013 MYT 11:21:00 AM
Updated: Saturday September 21, 2013 MYT 2:32:39 PM
White House rounding up support for Yellen to take reins at Fed

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

WASHINGTON:White House officials are mustering support among Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee to back Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen, three sources said on Friday, laying the groundwork for her expected nomination to the Fed's top job.
Two Senate Democratic aides, who requested anonymity, said officials had encouraged senators to support Yellen and talk her up, hardening the sense that President Barack Obama has settled on her to replace Fed chief Ben Bernankewhen his term ends in January.
A third source familiar with the calls said the White House had reached out to some of the 20 Democratic senators who had signed a letter to Obama in July urging him to appoint Yellen, who would be the first woman to hold the job if confirmed by theSenate.
This source said the White House had not communicated that Obama had made a decision on who to nominate, but wanted to make sure any negative reports about Yellen did not go unanswered.
The outreach to Capitol Hill indicates a serious effort to make sure her confirmation would run smoothly. A White House official said earlier this week that Yellen was the leading candidate.
The third source said the calls were mostly at the staff level, although some senators may have been contacted directly.
Obama, who leaves on a week-long tour of Asia on Oct. 6, is expected to announce his decision in the coming weeks.
Yellen, who is seen as one of the most dovish Fed officials, is likely to enjoy solid backing from Democrats, but could draw some fire from Republicans worried that the central bank's aggressive efforts to spur stronger economic growth could fuel inflation or asset bubbles.
Democrats control the Senate 54-46, but any nomination is likely to need to secure 60 votes to overcome procedural hurdles. Republicans have not indicated whether they might seek to block a Yellen nomination.
Yellen became the front runner after former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summerswithdrew from the race on Sunday in the face of opposition from liberal Democrats.
Obama was felt to favor his selection. But Summers' record of advocacy for financial deregulation, as well as remarks in the past deemed as sexist, sparked a backlash among some Democrats on the banking panel that would need to decide whether to send any nomination to the full Senate for approval.
Obama said last month that Summers and Yellen were both being considered for the job, the most powerful economic office in the nation, as was former Fed vice chairDonald Kohn.
One of the senate aides said Kohn's name had not come up in the conversations with the White House. - Reuters

by **Cals** Sun 22 Sep 2013, 19:03

Published: Saturday September 21, 2013 MYT 11:14:00 AM
Updated: Saturday September 21, 2013 MYT 12:10:21 PM
US stocks needn't fret about a government shutdown
NEW YORK: Investors may be tempted to shy away from stocks in the next week or two as the latest version of the fiscal follies plays out in Washington.
It's understandable. The prospect of a government shutdown or, worse, default on the federal debt, rekindles memories of 2011 when Washington's infighting prompted the loss of the United States' triple-A credit rating and was a primary driver behind the stock market's last full-on correction.
The sense from Wall Street analysts this time, however, is that the current drama is likely to feature more bluster than bravado and contains overblown threats.
"Looking back at the pattern that has emerged since the debt ceiling fiasco back in 2011, the Republican leadership got the message that if there is a government shutdown, most likely their party is going to get blamed," said Brian Jacobsen, chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management in Menomonee Falls,Wisconsin.
"They're going to be very sensitive to that public sentiment as we get closer to a midterm election year" in 2014, Jacobsen said.
"In spite of all the brinkmanship being talked about ... there will be a deal and then we will move on," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Equity Management in San Francisco.
This autumn's standoff comes with two separate but related deadlines.
First, failure to come up with a budget deal by the end of the month risks a federal government shutdown starting Oct. 1. Then, by mid-October lawmakers must vote to raise the federal debt ceiling to prevent a default.
The posturing has been under way for weeks. In the latest move, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed legislation on Friday to fund federal agencies through mid-December but also inserted a provision killing PresidentBarack Obama's landmark healthcare overhaul.
Democrats, who control the Senate, have said they will strip out that provision when the bill comes before the Senate, most likely next week.
Wall Street players are sanguine about events unfolding in Washington.
EMPTY THREAT
"Uncertainty will probably rise ahead of these events, but we think this is likely to be short-lived and probably less severe than some other recent episodes," said aGoldman Sachs research note.
In fact, the current episode could prove to be an empty threat, like the so-called "fiscal cliff," last December. After weeks of dire predictions of big tax hikes and draconian spending cuts if no deal was reached, lawmakers came to a last-minute accord, and the market kicked into high gear for 2013. The S&P 500 is up more than 22 percent year to date on a total return basis, including re-invested dividends.
"While we could get a pullback on worries about the debt ceiling and the continuing resolution, my guess is it will go the same way as the fiscal cliff went - a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing," said Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist atRaymond James Financial in St. Petersburg, Florida.
"If the market pulls back on (Washington) worries, I think it's a buy," said Saut.
As the budget battle heats up, the lack of angst among investors was reflected in a fall in the CBOE Volatility Index , Wall Street's favorite measure of fear. It ticked down to 13.12 on Friday and has posted three straight weeks of losses for a total drop in that period of 23 percent.
Next week on Wall Street, the widely followed Dow Jones industrial average will open Monday with three new components as Goldman Sachs, Visa and Nike replace Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard and Alcoa.
ANOTHER TAPER TANTRUM
Even though the market has a low chance of disruption from the fiscal fighting, there might still be a bearish signal from Washington.
"Fiscal retrenchment" in Washington was one of the reasons cited this week by theFederal Reserve for not reducing its stimulus program of $85 billion a month in bond purchases. The policy has kept downward pressure on interest rates and has helped lift the S&P 500 this year.
The reduced likelihood of a political impasse over the budget could then open the door for the Fed to begin tapering as early as late October when it holds its next policy-setting meeting.
That possibility was raised by St. Louis Fed President James Bullard on Friday, noting that the decision still depends on data about the economy. He also said the Fed has maneuvering room as along as inflation is low.
"One of the things that pushed the Fed into the precautionary side was the fiscal issues. They realized what sort of effect that could have on the economy and decided not to taper," said Wells Fargo's Jacobsen.
"It is entirely possible that on Oct. 30 we could see a slight tapering because we'll have passed some of the chaos in (Washington) D.C. if there is a resolution of the budget issues," he said. - Reuters

by **kppl** Mon 23 Sep 2013, 23:42

All down, except apple, thank you apple, i managed to escape from my QQQ etf call in the first 5 minutes of open....

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Tue 24 Sep 2013, 06:00

U.S. Stocks Fall as Banks Decline Amid Fed Speeches
By Lu Wang - Sep 24, 2013 4:26 AM GMT+0800

U.S. stocks fell, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index having the longest retreat in a month, as financial shares slumped and investors watched speeches from Federal Reserve officials for clues on monetary policies.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. declined more than 2.7 percent as Atlantic Equities LLP forecast a drop in fixed-income trading revenue for the biggest U.S. banks. Homebuilders slipped 1.6 percent as a group before Lennar Corp. and KB Home (KBH) report earnings tomorrow. Apple (AAPL) Inc. surged 5 percent after saying first-weekend sales of its new iPhones topped 9 million units.

The S&P 500 (SPX) retreated 0.5 percent to 1,701.84 at 4 p.m. in New York. The benchmark gauge has lost 1.4 percent over three days, giving back all its gains from the Fed’s unexpected move last week to maintain stimulus levels. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 49.71 points, or 0.3 percent, to 15,401.38. About 5.8 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, in line with the three-month average.

“At some point, investors are going to say, ‘What’s underpinning this strong rally? We need some solid numbers,’” Scott Armiger, chief investment officer at Christiana Trust in Wilmington, Delaware, said in a phone interview. The firm has $6 billion under administration. Fed policy makers “are trying to neutralize the market. This time Bernanke said no tapering and they’re all running out and saying ‘wait a minute, folks, don’t get carried away.’”

The S&P 500 rose 1.3 percent last week, touching a record high, as the Federal Open Market Committee said at its Sept. 17-18 meeting that it will continue to buy $85 billion of assets a month, surprising economists who had forecast a reduction. The S&P 500 has gained 6 percent for the quarter and is up 19 percent for the year.

Fed Speakers

The central bank has left its main interest rate near zero since December 2008 and has expanded its balance sheet to a record $3.66 trillion through three rounds of stimulus. The quantitative easing program has helped the S&P 500 surge more than 150 percent since March 2009.

The rally has pushed equities to their highest valuations in more than three years. At a record close on Sept. 18, the S&P 500 traded at 16.5 times reported earnings, a multiple not seen since May 2010, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Three regional bank presidents spoke today. Fed Bank of New York President William C. Dudley said policy makers must “forcefully” push against economic headwinds as the U.S. has yet to show “any meaningful pickup” in momentum. Fed Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhartsaid monetary policy should focus on creating a more dynamic economy. Fed Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said the central bank harmed its credibility with the decision last week.

‘Less Clarity’

The S&P 500 fell 0.7 percent on Sept. 20 as Fed Bank of St. Louis President James Bullardsaid policy makers may decide to reduce their monthly bond purchases at the meeting in October.

“The more people who speak from the Fed in one day, the less clarity there is,” Richard Sichel, who oversees about $1.9 billion as chief investment officer at Philadelphia Trust Co., said by phone. “People will be hanging at every word that’s said for more clues about our monetary policy.”

Even as investors focus on the Fed’s policies, a risk is rising from another corner of Washington. Hardening positions on the federal budget and borrowing limit, and recent political setbacks suffered by both President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders as they go into the fight, are raising the odds of a government shutdown, debt default or near-miss that could roil equities markets.

‘Ugly Confrontation’

Forty percent of global investors surveyed in a Sept. 10 Bloomberg poll said they would pull back on U.S. markets in the event of a government shutdown, which many economists say would be less damaging than a debt default.

“We are in for another ugly confrontation,” said Howard Ward, the chief investment officer for growth equity at Rye, New York-based Gamco Investors Inc., which oversees about $40 billion. “Even though everyone knows the impasse will be short-lived, it is a sad reminder of how dysfunctional Washington has become. It will be a catalyst for taking profits after the recent run-up.”

Outside the U.S., German Chancellor Angela Merkel was re-elected yesterday, winning the biggest tally since Helmut Kohl’s post-reunification victory of 1990. In Asia, the preliminary reading of a purchasing managers’ index for Chinese manufacturing compiled by HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics climbed to 51.2 in September from 50.1 in August. That beat the 50.9 median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Triple Witching

U.S. equities will likely extend their declines this week, if history is any guide, after the Sept. 20 expiration in futures and options contracts, according to MacNeil Curry, a New York-based technical strategist at Bank of America Corp.

When the quarterly expiration process known as triple witching occurs in September, the following week has resulted in losses 68 percent of the time for the S&P 500 since equity index futures were created in 1982, according to a study by Curry. In the past 10 years, the S&P 500 has fallen 80 percent of the time in the week after September triple witching, averaging a decline of 1.9 percent, the data show.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (VIX), the gauge of S&P 500 options prices known as the VIX, jumped 9.1 percent, the most since Aug. 27, to 14.31. The measure is still down 21 percent this year.

Seven of 10 S&P 500 industry groups declined, with financial shares falling 1.5 percent as a group for the largest drop. Utility and technology shares had the best performance, rising 1.2 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively.

Banks Slump

The largest U.S. banks’ fixed-income trading revenue will probably fall 20 percent in the third quarter from a year ago on lower volumes, Richard Staite, an analyst at Atlantic Equities wrote in a note. Staite cut his estimate for Goldman Sachs’s per-share earnings 18 percent to $2.47 and Citigroup’s by 14 percent to $1.05.

Goldman Sachs slid 2.7 percent to $165.25 for the biggest retreat in the Dow. Citigroup sank 3.2 percent to $49.57. JPMorgan Chase & Co. retreated 2.5 percent to $51.46 and Bank of America Corp. erased 2.1 percent to $14.14.

The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index declined 1.6 percent, with all 11 members falling. Lennar slid 1.7 percent to $34.54 while KB Home lost 3.4 percent to $17.03.

Lennar’s (LEN) profit growth during the three months ended August probably slowed to 13 percent from 105 percent in the previous quarter while KB Home’s earnings may have increased 32 percent, less than half its pace in the previous quarter, analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg show.

Apple, Pandora

Apple jumped 5 percent, the most in the S&P 500 and its biggest gain since July 24, to $490.64. The company sold 9 million iPhone 5s and 5c models. That topped the 5 million in opening-weekend sales for last year’s model and surpassed analyst estimates that ranged from 6 million to 7.75 million, according to a Bloomberg poll.

Pandora Media Inc., the biggest web radio service, tumbled 10 percent to $24.26 after Apple said more than 11 million listeners have used iTunes Radio since its launch this year.

BlackBerry (BBRY) Ltd. added 1.1 percent to $8.82. The company entered a tentative agreement for a $4.7 billion buyout from a group led by its biggest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., forging a path to go private after a new line of smartphones failed to catch on.

BlackBerry Downgrade

Shares of BlackBerry fell as much as 6.1 percent earlier as Jefferies Group LLC lowered itsrating on the shares to hold from buy, saying the handset business has a negative value. The stock tumbled 17 percent on Sept. 20 after the company posted quarterly sales that trailed analysts’ estimates by half and announced 4,500 job cuts.

General Electric Co. advanced 1.1 percent to $24.28 after winning contracts worth $2.7 billion from a unit of Sonelgaz, Algeria’s state-owned electricity and gas company. GE will supply heavy-duty gas turbines, steam turbines and generators for nine power plants, according to a statement.

Walgreen Co. added 1.3 percent to a record $56.23. Morgan Stanley boosted its rating on the drugstore chain to overweight from equal weight.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lu Wang in New York at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **kppl** Tue 24 Sep 2013, 08:28

kppl wrote:All down, except apple, thank you apple, i managed to escape from my QQQ etf call in the first 5 minutes of open....

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Next time need to watch results for new product launch....

by **Cals** Wed 25 Sep 2013, 01:49

U.S. Stocks Rise on Obama Speech as Investors Weigh Data
By Lu Wang - Sep 25, 2013 12:50 AM GMT+0800

U.S. stocks rose, snapping a three-day drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as data showing a drop in consumer confidence was overshadowed by President Barack Obama’s comments that eased concern over Middle East tensions.
Homebuilders gained 4 percent as a group after data showed home prices increased by the most in more than seven years and Lennar Corp.’s profit beat analyst estimates. Applied Materials Inc. advanced 7.3 percent after agreeing to buy Tokyo Electron Ltd. for about $9.39 billion in stock. Red Hat Inc. slumped 11 percent after second-quarter billings at the largest seller of the Linux operating system trailed estimates.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

4:23

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Jeffrey Rosenberg, chief investment strategist for fixed income at BlackRock Inc., talks about market outlook and Federal Reserve policy. Rosenberg speaks with Tom Keene, Sara Eisen and Scarlet Fu on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance." (Source: Bloomberg)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

4:41

Sept 24 (Bloomberg) -- Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc., talks about the outlook for housing prices and market strategy. He speaks with Tom Keene, Sara Eisen and Scarlet Fu on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance." Jim O'Neill, Bloomberg View columnist and former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

7:42

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Daniel Arbess, a partner at Perella Weinberg Partners LP, talks about Federal Reserve policy and the impact on the U.S. housing market. He speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)
The S&P 500 rose 0.3 percent to 1,706.37 at 12:46 p.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 31.66 points, or 0.2 percent, to 15,433.04. Trading in S&P 500 stocks was 9.3 percent above the 30-day average at this time of day.
The market is “riding waves of news, both good and bad,”[url=http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Malcolm polley&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1&partialfields=-wnnis:NOAVSYND&lr=-lang_ja]Malcolm Polley[/url], the chief investment officer at Stewart Capital Advisors LLC in Indiana, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. His firm manages $1.1 billion. “The market is very dependent on macro news.”
Equities erased earlier losses as Obama said recent overtures from Iran may offer a basis for a “meaningful agreement” to resolve the confrontation over the Persian Gulf nation’s nuclear program, one of the primary sources of instability in the Middle East.
Consumer Confidence
The S&P 500 fell as much as 0.4 percent after the Conference Board’s index of U.S. consumer confidence slumped in September to a four-month low. A separate report showed a gauge of manufacturing in the region covered by the Fed Bank of Richmond shrank in September.
The equity benchmark gauge declined 1.4 percent in the previous three trading sessions after reaching an all-time high of 1,725.52 as the Federal Reserve refrained from cutting stimulus. The Federal Open Market Committee said after its Sept. 17-18 meeting that it wants more evidence of an economic recovery before paring its $85 billion of monthly asset purchases, surprising economists who had forecast a reduction. The S&P 500 has gained 6.1 percent this quarter and is up 20 percent for the year.
Fed Bank of New York President [url=http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=William C. dudley&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1&partialfields=-wnnis:NOAVSYND&lr=-lang_ja]William C. Dudley[/url] said today the central bank may reduce the pace of its quantitative easing program in 2013 depending on the economy’s performance.
June Forecast
“If the economy were behaving in a way aligned with the Fed’s June forecast, then it’s certainly likely that the Fed would begin to taper later this year,” Dudley said in an interview with CNBC. “I certainly wouldn’t want to rule it out. But it depends on the data.”
Stocks fell on Sept. 20 as Fed Bank of St. Louis President [url=http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=James bullard&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1&partialfields=-wnnis:NOAVSYND&lr=-lang_ja]James Bullard[/url] said policy makers may decide to reduce their monthly bond purchases at the meeting in October.
“There are so many different views from the Fed itself and there is no one voice that seems to be articulating a common message,” [url=http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Mark freeman&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1&partialfields=-wnnis:NOAVSYND&lr=-lang_ja]Mark Freeman[/url], who oversees about $15.8 billion as chief investment officer at Westwood Holdings Group Inc. in Dallas, said by phone. “What they ultimately created is uncertainty and that’s never a positive for the market.”
Investors are also watching the debate in Washington over spending cuts. Hardening positions on the federal budget and borrowing limit, and recent political setbacks suffered by both President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders as they go into the fight, are raising the odds of a government shutdown, debt default or near-miss that could roil equities markets.
‘Lingering Concern’
“We may have a couple few weeks where there is still lingering concern over the Fed along with very much headline risk around the budget ceiling debate,” [url=http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=David chalupnik&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1&partialfields=-wnnis:NOAVSYND&lr=-lang_ja]David Chalupnik[/url], head of equities at Nuveen Asset Management in Minneapolis, said in a phone interview. His firm manages more than $115 billion. “Over the short term, we would see the market continue to either muddle through or consolidate before we hit earnings season.”
The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, the gauge of S&P 500 options prices known as the VIX, fell 2.9 percent to 13.89, extending its drop for the year to 23 percent.
Five out of 10 S&P 500 industry groups rose as industrial and consumer-discretionary companies gained the most, adding at least 0.6 percent. Telephone and utility companies erased more than 0.2 percent for the worst performance.
Homebuilders Rally
The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index climbed 4 percent, with all its 11 members rising, as a report showed home prices in 20 U.S. cities rose in the 12 months through July by the most in more than seven years.
Lennar, the third-largest U.S. homebuilder by revenue, rose 5.7 percent to $36.49 after fiscal third-quarter earnings topped analysts’ estimates, driven by higher sales and home prices.
Applied Materials advanced 7.3 percent to $17.16 as the largest supplier of chipmaking equipment said it will buy Tokyo Electron. Gary Dickerson, chief executive officer of Applied Materials, will become CEO of the combined company, which will be 68 percent owned by Applied Materials shareholders.
Facebook Inc. climbed 3.8 percent to $49. Citigroup Inc.’s [url=http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Mark may&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1&partialfields=-wnnis:NOAVSYND&lr=-lang_ja]Mark May[/url] raised his recommendation on the social-network operator to buy from neutral, saying feedback from advertisers and agencies suggest that the growth seen in the second quarter is sustainable. May also boosted his price estimate by 72 percent to $55 a share.
CarMax Inc. gained 3.6 percent to $51.80. The car dealer said second-quarter profit beat analyst estimates as used car sales climbed 20 percent from a year ago.
Red Hat tumbled 11 percent to $47.31. Billings, a predictor of future revenue, rose 8 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier to $376 million. Analysts at CLSA had projected an increase of 17 percent, and Stifel Nicolaus & Co. predicted 14 percent growth.
Carnival Corp. slipped 6.7 percent to $34.89. The world’s largest cruise-ship operator forecast fourth-quarter results that trailed analysts’ estimates, citing a decline in advance bookings and higher fuel prices.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lu Wang in New York at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Wed 25 Sep 2013, 23:00

U.S. Stocks Fluctuate After Home Data Amid Budget Concern
By Inyoung Hwang & Lu Wang - Sep 25, 2013 10:07 PM GMT+0800

U.S. stocks fluctuated, after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell four straight days, as investors weighed data on home sales amid growing concern that lawmakers won’t reach a budget deal.
Stryker Corp. slipped 1.4 after agreeing to buy Mako Surgical Corp. for $1.65 billion. Carnival Corp. (CCL) retreated 4.4 percent as analysts cut their recommendations after the world’s largest cruise-ship operator forecast a possible quarterly loss. Noble Corp. added 2.5 percent after saying it plans to spin off about half its fleet.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

6:01

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, talks about efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, congressional budget negotiations and prospects for a government shutdown. Johnson speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

24:08

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew talks about the outlook for an agreement between Congress and the White House to raise the federal debt limit, the health of the U.S. banking industry and economic sanctions against Iran. Lew speaks with Al Hunt at the Bloomberg Link Bloomberg Markets 50 Summit in New York. (Source: Bloomberg)
The S&P 500 fell 0.1 percent to 1,695.91 at 10:07 a.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 5.91 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 15,328.68. Trading in S&P 500 stocks was 3 percent below the 30-day average at this time of day.
“There is a lot of skittishness on what’s to come in terms ofWashington budget negotiations,” Diane Jaffee, the New York-based group managing director for U.S. equities who oversees about $6.4 billion in assets at TCW Group Inc., said in a phone interview.
The S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent yesterday, pushing its four-day slide to 1.6 percent, as investors watched the debate in Washington over spending cuts that could lead to a government shutdown after funding authority ends on Sept. 30.
Budget Vote
The Senate is poised to vote today on advancing a stopgap measure that would give House Speaker John Boehner, anOhio Republican, time to craft an alternative budget bill. The dispute probably will continue through the weekend.
On another fiscal front, the House today could introduce legislation to increase the government’s authority to borrow and pay bills. The Treasury Department estimates that the debt limit could be reached as soon as mid-October.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said investor confidence that a deal can be struck to raise the limit is “a bit greater than it should be.” Lew, who spoke at the Bloomberg Markets 50 Summit in New York yesterday, repeated that President Barack Obama won’t negotiate with congressional Republicans on increasing the $16.7 trillion ceiling on the nation’s borrowing authority and said the government probably will have less than $50 billion in cash by mid-October.
Data from the Commerce Department today indicated purchases of new U.S. homes rose in August, capping the weakest two months this year, showing the fallout from mortgage rates at a two-year high is cooling the real-estate rebound.
Home Sales
Sales increased 7.9 percent to a 421,000 annualized pace following a 390,000 rate in the prior month that was less than previously estimated, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Demand slumped 14.1 percent in July.
A separate Commerce Department report showed orders for equipment such as computers and machinery climbed less than forecast in August, indicating a strengthening in business spending will take time to develop. Bookings for non-military capital goods excluding aircraft increased 1.5 percent, less than the 2 percent gain that was the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey.
Investors have been scrutinizing data to determine whether economic growth is robust enough for the Federal Reserve to begin paring back its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases. The central bank’s decision Sept. 18 to refrain from tapering sent the S&P 500 to a record close of 1,725.52. The index had gained 5.7 percent this quarter through yesterday and is up 19 percent in 2013.
Fed Decision
The gauge has retreated every session since the Fed decision, as policy makers have sent mixed signals on the timing of the central bank’s next move. Fed Bank of St. Louis PresidentJames Bullard said Sept. 20 tapering could start at the October meeting. William Dudley, head of the New York Fed, said yesterday any cut would depend on the economy’s performance.
Americans are losing faith in the nation’s economic recovery, according to a Sept. 20-23 Bloomberg National Poll. Forty-four percent of poll respondents say they expect the economy, which has expanded for nine consecutive quarters, to remain about the same over the next year, while 28 percent see it weakening. A report yesterday from the Conference Board showed an index of U.S. consumer confidence slumped in September to a four-month low.
Volatility Gauge
The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (VIX), the gauge of S&P 500 options prices known as the VIX, gained 2.3 percent to 14.40. The measure has fallen 20 percent this year.
Stryker fell 1.4 percent to $69.84. The second-largest seller of orthopedic devices agreed to buy Mako for $30 a share to add technology for robot-assisted surgeries. Mako surged 83 percent to $29.55.
Intuitive Surgical Inc., another maker of robot surgical equipment, climbed 1.7 percent to $370.04.
Carnival lost 4.4 percent to $33.03, extending a 7.7 percent drop yesterday after the world’s largest cruise-ship operator forecast an unexpected loss for the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley cut its recommendation to underweight, similar to a sell rating, from equal weight, while Natixis lowered its rating to reduce from neutral.
Noble (NE) climbed 2.5 percent to $38.86. The offshore rig contractor said it will spin off about half its fleet into a separate company to focus on its higher-priced rigs working in deeper waters.
Riskless Return
U.S. stocks are delivering the best risk-adjusted returns among the world’s biggest developed markets as a third straight year of earnings growth produces steadier gains.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has risen 1.9 percent in 2013 when adjusted for price swings, the top advance among 24 of the largest developed nations, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg. The performance exceeds Japan, where prices have surged almost twice as much this year, as a measure of U.S. volatility reached a six-year low.
The benchmark for American equities has provided more stable returns as China’s economyexpands at the slowest pace in at least two decades and Europe faces record joblessness, prompting investors to seek safety in U.S. companies. The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented bond purchases and five years of S&P 500 profit growth have helped rebuild investor confidence after the financial crisis and reduce price swings.
“The U.S. continues to be the most resilient economy across the world and its markets have reflected that with the least amount of volatility,” Joseph Tanious, global market strategist for J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said in a phone interview from New York. His firm oversees about $1.5 trillion. “Earnings growth has continued to hit record highs. There is less skepticism about the long-term potential in U.S. markets.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Inyoung Hwang in New York at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.];Lu Wang in New York at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Rummer at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Thu 26 Sep 2013, 21:36

Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Decline to 305,000
By Victoria Stilwell & Shobhana Chandra - Sep 26, 2013 8:59 PM GMT+0800

The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly declined last week, showing further progress in the labor market.

Jobless claims decreased by 5,000 to 305,000 in the week ended Sept. 21, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 49 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for an increase to 325,000. The four-week average of initial filings fell to the lowest since June 2007.

Enlarge image[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Employees assemble Motorola Solutions Inc. Moto X smartphones at the Flextronics International Ltd. factory in Fort Worth, Texas, on Sept. 10, 2013. Photographer: Mike Fuentes/Bloomberg

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

0:47

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly declined last week, showing further progress in the labor market. Jobless claims decreased by 5,000 to 305,000 in the week ended Sept. 21, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. Deirdre Bolton and Sara Eisen report on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

9:34

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Jim O'Neill, Bloomberg View columnist and former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, talks about Federal Reserve policy, the economic outlook for China, and the impact of Fed policy on emerging markets. O'Neill speaks with Tom Keene, Sara Eisen and Scarlet Fu on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance." (Source: Bloomberg)
Fewer dismissals may be a sign employers are optimistic about the demand outlook in the U.S. Further gains in employment and improved income growth will be necessary to spur bigger advances in consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.
“The decline in claims is encouraging and suggests ongoing labor-market improvement,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, a strategist at TD Securities USA LLC in New York. “Employers are little bit more positive about the economic outlook.”
A Labor Department official said California and Nevada have caught up with a recent backlog of new applications stemming from a computer system changeover that skewed jobless claims data during the month.
California’s claims in the period ended Sept. 14 surged 22,611 as the state began a full week of processing applications. Filings in Nevada that same week rose 2,504.
Stock-index futures held gains after the figures, with the contract on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in December rising 0.3 percent to 1,690.4 at 8:58 a.m. in New York.
Economists’ estimates in the Bloomberg survey ranged from claims of 310,000 to 370,000 after the prior week’s previously reported 309,000.
Four-Week Average
The four-week average dropped to 308,000 from 315,000 in the prior week, today’s Labor Department report showed.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits increased by 35,000 to 2.82 million in the week ended Sept. 14. The continuing claims figure does not include the number of Americans receiving extended benefits under federal programs.
Those who have used up their traditional benefits and are now collecting emergency and extended payments increased by about 32,500 to 1.35 million in the week ended Sept. 7.
The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits increased to 2.2 percent in the week ended Sept. 14.
Thirty-eight states and territories reported an increase in claims, while 15 reported a decline. These data are reported with a one-week lag.
Labor Outlook
While the labor market has shown improvement, the slow pace may be a source of concern for some consumers. The Conference Board’s confidence index fell to 79.7 this month, the weakest reading since May. The share of Americans who said jobs would become more plentiful in the next six months fell to 16.9 percent from 17.5 percent.
At the same time, the gap between those who said work opportunities are currently scarce, and those who said they’re easy to get, shrank to the lowest since September 2008.
“You’re definitely seeing the assessment of the labor market improve,” said Jacob Oubina, senior economist at RBC Capital Markets LLC in New York.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is among companies hiring after eliminating positions during the recession. The retailer is taking on 55,000 seasonal workers and adding another 70,000 part-time and full-time workers as it gears up for the holiday season and reverses workforce reductions that made it hard to keep store shelves stocked.
The U.S. workforce at Wal-Mart’s namesake and Sam’s Club warehouse chains fell by about 120,000 employees in the past five years, to about 1.3 million, according to regulatory filings. In that time, the company has added more than 500 U.S. stores through July 31.
To contact the reporter on this story: Victoria Stilwell in Washington at[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; Shobhana Chandra in Washington at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Thu 26 Sep 2013, 21:37

U.S. Stock Futures Rise After GDP, Jobless Claims Data
By Sofia Horta e Costa - Sep 26, 2013 8:37 PM GMT+0800

U.S. stock futures extended gains after data showed the economy expanded at a faster pace last quarter and jobless claims unexpectedly fell, overshadowing concern that the budget impasse could hurt the recovery.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (BBBY) gained 5.8 percent after raising the low end of its full-year earnings forecast. Caesars Entertainment Corp. (CZR) slipped 5.6 percent as the casino operator began selling 10 million new shares. Hertz Global Holdings Inc. sank 10 percent after cutting its forecasts.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

0:47

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly declined last week, showing further progress in the labor market. Jobless claims decreased by 5,000 to 305,000 in the week ended Sept. 21, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. Deirdre Bolton and Sara Eisen report on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg
S&P 500 futures expiring in December rose 0.3 percent to 1,690.60 at 8:36 a.m. in New York. Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 34 points, or 0.2 percent, to 15,244.
“Washington has been dragging their feet as of late but eventually they’ll be forced into action,” said Patrick Spencer, head of U.S. equity sales for Robert W. Baird & Co. in London. “We’ve been down this road before. It’s quite natural and healthy to have pull-backs in a bull market. We’ll shift into a stronger gear with a settlement on the budget and what I think will be a very positive earnings season.”
The S&P 500 has declined 1.9 percent in the past five days after closing at an all-time high on Sept. 18, as investors weighed whether a looming government shutdown will hamper economic growth. The Office of Management and Budget estimated 30 days of shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 cost more than $1.4 billion, or $2.09 billion in today’s dollars.
Debt Ceiling
The Senate likely will not vote on a stopgap spending bill until this weekend, leaving the House just one full workday to act before spending authority for the federal government expires on Oct. 1. The House and Senate are at odds over language that withdraws funding for the 2010 health-care law.
On another fiscal front, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew told Congress yesterday that the extraordinary measures being used to avoid breaching the debt ceiling “will be exhausted no later than Oct. 17.” Failure to increase the debt limit could lead to a downgrade of the U.S. government’s credit rating.
The S&P 500’s current losing streak is the index’s longest since Dec. 28, when lawmakers wrangled over impending automatic spending cuts and tax increases known as the fiscal cliff.
Investors are also watching economic reports to help determine whether U.S. growth is sufficient for the Federal Reserve to begin reducing its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases.
GDP Report
The economy expanded at faster pace in the second quarter from the previous three months, as gross domestic product rose at a 2.5 percent annualized rate, unrevised from the previous estimate, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was a 2.6 percent pace.
A Labor Department report showed the number of Americans filing applications forunemployment benefits unexpectedly declined last week, indicating further progress in the labor market.
A separate report may show an index of pending home sales slipped 1 percent in August for a third consecutive month of declines, economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected. That would follow a 1.3 percent drop in the prior month, which was the biggest retreat this year. The National Association of Realtors releases the figures at 10 a.m. in Washington.
Fed Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker, who voted repeatedly last year against expanding stimulus, said the central bank’s $3.72 trillion balance sheet and guidance on the likely path of interest rates increase the risks and costs of policy mistakes.
Policy Mistakes
“My concern is that the combination of forward guidance and a very large balance sheet has raised the likelihood of policy mistakes going forward, and also has raised the cost of such mistakes, should they occur,” Lacker said today in a speech at the Swedbank Economic Outlook Seminar in Stockholm.
Bed Bath & Beyond gained 5.8 percent to $78.55. The retailer predicted full-year adjusted earnings per share of $4.88 to $5.01, up from a previous range of $4.84 to $5.01. Profit rose to $1.16 a share in the fiscal second quarter, exceeding the average analyst estimate of $1.15, as comparable sales jumped 3.7 percent in the period. Analysts had predicted sales growth of 3.2 percent.
Caesars, which has $23.5 billion in debt, slipped 5.6 percent to $19.75. As part of the share sale, underwriter Credit Suisse Securities has the option to purchase an additional 1.5 million shares, according to a statement late yesterday. The company had 126.3 million shares outstanding on Aug. 1, according to the latest quarterly regulatory filing.
Hertz sank 10 percent to $23.12. The rental-car company trimmed its forecast for full-year revenue and profit, citing weaker than anticipated car rentals at U.S. airports.
J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) declined 6.2 percent to $9.49, on track to extend yesterday’s 15 percent slide. The retailer may seek to raise $750 million to $1 billion by selling new shares, Reuters reported, citing three unidentified people familiar with the matter. The stock yesterday dropped to its lowest price since December 2000 on bets the company may run out of cash.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sofia Horta e Costa in London at[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Rummer at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; Lynn Thomasson at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Fri 27 Sep 2013, 22:16

U.S. Stocks Decline Amid Concerns Over Federal Budget
By Tom Stoukas & Lu Wang - Sep 27, 2013 9:59 PM GMT+0800

U.S. stocks fell, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index headed for its first weekly drop since August, amid concern the budget impasse will hurt economic growth in the world’s largest economy.
Airlines slipped 3.1 percent as a group as United Continental Holdings Inc. said a measure for its passenger revenue will be at the low end of its forecast. J.C. Penney Co. slid 11 percent after the retailer began selling 84 million shares to raise cash. Nektar Therapeutics tumbled 23 percent after a study of the slow-release painkiller NKTR-181 failed to meet its goals. Nike Inc. (NKE) surged 5.7 percent as fiscal first-quarter profit topped analysts’ estimates.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

5:12

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Richard Clarida, global strategic adviser at Pacific Investment Management Co., talks about U.S. congressional budget negotiations and prospects for a government shutdown. Clarida, speaking with Tom Keene and Sara Eisen on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance," also discusses German Chancellor Angela Merkel's re-election. (Source: Bloomberg)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

6:02

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Arnab Das, managing director of market research and strategy at Roubini Global Economics, talks about the U.S. economy and concerns over budget gridlock. He speaks with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television's "The Pulse." (Source: Bloomberg)
The S&P 500 (SPX) fell 0.5 percent to 1,689.84 at 9:57 a.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated 0.5 percent to 15,249.31. Trading in S&P 500 stocks was 42 percent above the 30-day average at this time of day.
“The data does seem to be seeing some improvement here, but with the overhang from Washington, that clouds the outlook for the immediate future,” Derek Hamilton, a global economist at Waddell & Reed Financial Inc. in Overland Park, Kansas, said in a phone interview. His firm manages $114 billion. “If we do have an extended government shutdown, and more importantly, an inability to pass the debt ceiling raise, that will probably have a fairly significant impact on the stock market.”
The S&P 500 has declined six of the past seven sessions and has slid 0.7 percent this week amid concern that Congress will fail to approve a federal budget before Monday’s deadline, leading to a government shutdown. The index rose 0.3 percent yesterday, snapping its longest losing streak this year, after an unexpected drop in jobless-benefit claims. Today’s slide trimmed the index’s third-quarter rally to 5.2 percent.
Spending Bill
The U.S. Senate plans to vote today on a spending bill, three days before federal spending authority runs out. House Speaker John Boehner said yesterday his chamber wouldn’t pass a “clean” bill after the Senate acts and then said he has “no interest in seeing a government shutdown.”
Congress must also reach a deal to avoid hitting the limit on the government’s ability to borrow. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said the extraordinary measures being used to avoid breaching the debt ceiling “will be exhausted no later than Oct. 17.” Failure to increase the debt limit could lead to a downgrade of the U.S. government’s credit rating.
A shutdown of the U.S. government would reduce fourth-quarter economic growth by as much as 1.4 percentage points depending on its length, economists said, as government workers from park rangers to telephone receptionists are furloughed. The Office of Management and Budget estimated 30 days of shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 cost more than $1.4 billion, or $2.09 billion in today’s dollars.
‘Headline Watching’
“People are just headline watching in terms of the debt ceiling,” said Nick Xanders, an equity strategist at BTIG Ltd. in London. Investors will “have to wait and see what happens with the votes in the next couple days and whether or not the lights go out in a couple of weeks,” he said.
The fiscal showdown in Washington has overshadowed economic data indicating continued expansion in the U.S. economy. A report today showed consumer spending rose in August for a fourth consecutive month, as a pickup in incomes bolstered the biggest part of the economy.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment for September fell to 77.5 from 82.1 a month earlier. Economists in a Bloomberg survey called for a drop to 78, according to the median projection after a preliminary reading of 76.8.
Fed Watch
Investors have been watching economic reports to help determine whether growth is sufficient for the Federal Reserve to begin cutting bond purchases at its next meeting in October. The S&P 500 reached an all-time high on Sept. 18, when the central bank refrained from reducing the pace of stimulus.
Fed Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans, who has been among the central bank’s most vocal proponents of record stimulus, said more signs of strength in the economy are needed to reduce asset purchases.
“I can’t have tremendous confidence in our economic situation,” he said to reporters today in Oslo. “A lot of developments are still under way. At the moment the data doesn’t provide us with confidence to make major adjustments” to the purchasing program, he said.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (VIX), the gauge of S&P 500 options prices known as the VIX, jumped 6 percent to 14.90. The measure is down 2 percent this quarter.
All 10 S&P 500 main industries fell as consumer-staples and industrial shares sank more than 0.7 percent for the worst performance.
Airlines Index
The Bloomberg U.S. Airlines Index dropped 3.1 percent. United Continental declined 7.7 percent to $31.45 after lower-than-expected results in international entities have limited gains in consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile, the company said.
J.C. Penney lost 11 percent to $9.32. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is running the offering, the department-store chain said in a statement yesterday. The underwriters will have a 30-day option to buy as much as an additional 12.6 million shares, which would push the total to 96.6 million shares.
Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR) plunged 23 percent to $10.71. The company said the painkiller failed to meet the primary endpoint of a Phase 2 study, citing an “unusual lack” of a gain in pain scores for patients taking a placebo.
Arch Coal Inc. (ACI), a U.S. coal producer, fell 3.8 percent to $4.36 as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. downgraded the stock to sell from neutral.
Nike gained 5.7 percent to $74.34. The world’s largest sporting-goods company said net income in the quarter ended Aug. 31 rose 38 percent to $780 million from $567 million a year earlier. Earnings per share from continuing operations were 86 cents. The average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg was 78 cents.
To contact the reporters on this story: Tom Stoukas in Athens at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; Lu Wang in New York at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Rummer at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; Lynn Thomasson at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **kppl** Tue 01 Oct 2013, 06:29

Weekly charts shows DJ has been sideways or even abit down for the last 3 months...

by **kppl** Wed 02 Oct 2013, 16:17

Monday's gap down was closed on Tuesday....
Wednesday's pre-market is down....showing continuation of a mini down trend....

Headbang

was holding a put on SPY yesterday but closed....did not trust myself Headbang

oh well...lesson learnt....

by **kppl** Wed 02 Oct 2013, 16:37

U.S. jobs report, other economic data would be delayed by shutdown

(Reuters) - The United States will stop publishing much of its economic data next week if the government shuts down, including the closely watched monthly employment report, officials said on Friday.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Thu 03 Oct 2013, 00:32

Obama Brings Congressional Leaders to White House Today
By Roxana Tiron, Kathleen Hunter & Lisa Lerer - Oct 2, 2013 11:34 PM GMT+0800

President Barack Obama summoned the top four leaders of Congress to the White House today for the first high-level talks on reopening the U.S. government and raising the debt ceiling.

Obama invited House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a White House official said on condition of anonymity.

Enlarge image[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

President Barack Obama walks back to the Oval Office after delivering remarks about the launch of the Affordable Care Act's health insurance marketplaces and the first federal government shutdown in 17 years in the Rose Garden of the White House on October 1, 2013 in Washington, DC. Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images

The U.S. government started a partial shutdown yesterday and must raise the U.S. debt limit this month to ensure the government has enough money to pay all its bills. The official said Obama will continue to insist on a short-term spending bill and debt limit increase without policy conditions.

“We’re pleased the president finally recognizes that his refusal to negotiate is indefensible,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Boehner.

House Republicans are seeking a way out of the impasse, today flinging five proposals for partial funding at the Democrats and seeking to engage the Senate and Obama in direct talks. All five measures are expected to come to the House floor today and drew immediate veto threats from the White House.

On the list are the three measures that failed to win enough votes through an expedited process yesterday that would reopen parks and the Department of Veterans Affairs and allowWashington’s city government to spend its money.

Another two -- funding for the National Institutes of Health and to pay the National Guard and Reserve forces -- are also set to be considered.

Visible Effects

The move is designed to blunt some of the most visible effects of the shutdown and compel Democrats to choose between popular programs and their insistence on a full resumption of government funding.

“We’re going to stay here and keep working, putting more options on the table to continue funding government, while also ending the sweetheart deals in Obamacare,” said Representative Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican.

Calling the Republicans’ ideas “cockamamie,” Reid said today the Senate will reject the piecemeal approach driven by what he called “modern-day anarchists” in the House.

“It’s time for my Republican colleagues to do a gut check,” he said, urging a vote on a spending bill without policy conditions attached.

Stocks fell and Treasuries rose, a day after as many as 800,000 federal workers were sent home with no paychecks and parks and other services were shuttered across the country.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slid 0.8 percent as of 10:14 a.m. in New York. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield fell five basis points to 2.60 percent. The dollar weakened versus 12 of 16 major currencies.

Obama Trip

White House officials announced today that Obama is shortening his planned trip for meetings with leaders in Asia, canceling stops in Malaysia and the Philippines because of the shutdown.

Senate Democrats have rejected the Republican ideas as political theater and insisting that Republicans fund the whole government temporarily and stop demanding major changes in Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Obama had harsh words for the Republicans yesterday, saying they had “demanded ransom just for doing their job” of passing a budget.

Health Exchanges

The shutdown coincided with the first day of enrollment for the health-care law, as new exchanges tried to handle of flood of consumer interest. Republicans called computer glitches a sign the measure, passed in 2010, isn’t workable. Obama said the demand shows the law -- which House Republicans have sought to defund or delay -- is important and popular.

Treasury market volatility increased by the most in six weeks yesterday. Price swings as measured by the Merrill Lynch Option Volatility Estimate Index (SPX) jumped 9 percent as the gauge advanced for a fifth day, the longest run of increases in four weeks. The index was at 87.37, versus the average of 69 for the past year.

The furlough of about 800,000 federal employees and the closing of offices, parks and museums may cost the U.S. at least $300 million a day in lost economic output at the start, according to IHS Inc. (IHS)

Though that’s a fraction of the country’s $15.7 trillion annual economy, the effects may multiply over time as consumers and businesses defer purchases and other spending plans.

Both sides are jockeying for the political high ground in the standoff. Democrats said the nation was being taken hostage by the Republicans’ Tea Party faction, while the Republicans faulted Senate Democrats and Obama for being unwilling to negotiate over any proposal to delay or curtail the health-care act.

Spending Level

Unlike past fiscal feuds, this dispute is more about the health law than the overall amount ofgovernment spending. Democrats say they have already made a concession by accepting spending levels set under the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration, which first went into effect earlier this year and were part of the deal to avoid a 2011 default.

The U.S. budget deficit in June was 4.3 percent of gross domestic product, down from 10.1 percent in February 2010 and the narrowest since November 2008, when Obama was elected to his first term, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the Treasury Department and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

House Republicans are divided between the hard-liners insisting on confrontation over the health-care law and at least 13 others who say they would support the Senate Democrats’ spending bill, which would end the shutdown without conditions attached.

Democratic Support

Democrats are counting on the split to force Boehner to allow a vote on that short-term spending bill, which probably would pass with the support of most Democrats and some Republicans.

“Most people view this as irresponsible and reckless with a lot of victims, including America’s economy,” said Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat. “The moderate Republicans are starting to feel the heat. If they’ll step up, we might bring this to an end.”

The effects of the partial government include the closure of Internal Revenue Service call centers. Also, more than 90 percent of Environmental Protection Agency workers are off work.

Octogenarian veterans ignored barricades around the World War II memorial on Washington’s Mall yesterday to view the outdoor site. National parks and museums, though, will stay shuttered.

Head Start

Head Start programs covering almost 19,000 children across the country lost funding, according to Sally Aman, a spokeswoman for the Alexandria, Virginia-based National Head Start Association.

The U.S. military academies suspended intercollegiate athletics and the Centers for Disease Control and NIH were sent home many of their workers.

Other services will continue uninterrupted. Social Security and Medicare benefits will be paid. U.S. troops will remain at their posts around the world and will be paid under a bill Obama signed on Sept. 30. Air-traffic controllers and airport security screeners will keep working.

To contact the reporters on this story: Roxana Tiron in Washington at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; Kathleen Hunter in Washington at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; Lisa Lerer in Washington at[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jodi Schneider at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Fri 04 Oct 2013, 00:40

Frustrated Republicans Pressure Boehner to End Shutdown
By Heidi Przybyla - Oct 3, 2013 10:32 PM GMT+0800

More than a dozen House Republicans who want to drop attempts to undermine the health-care law and reopen the government are meeting among themselves and with House Speaker John Boehner -- and he’s listening.

Enlarge image[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Speaker of the House John Boehner speaks to the media after a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, DC, on October 2, 2013, on the second day of the government shutdown. Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

4:53

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- John Kanas, chief executive officer of BankUnited Inc., talks about the U.S. government's partial shutdown and debt-ceiling negotiations. Kanas speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

1:18

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- House Speaker John Boehner speaks with reporters about his meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House and the U.S. government shutdown. Boehner said Obama refused to negotiate in a meeting with top congressional leaders about the government shutdown. (Source: Bloomberg)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

4:37

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Representative Scott Rigell, a Virginia Republican, talks about the outlook for a resolution of the stalemate over passing a continuing resolution. Rigell speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)

Enlarge image[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
According to two lawmakers who participated in the earlier gathering with Boehner, the speaker told them he wants to shift the focus to a long-term agreement to address the nation’s debt that would also avoid a clash over raising the U.S. debt limit later this month. Photographer: Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images
For the past few weeks, Boehner’s hand has been guided by Tea Party-aligned Republican House members who’ve urged little compromise in their three-year drive to undo the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Now, the agitation is coming from the other side of the caucus. A bipartisan group of about 40 House lawmakers are holding private talks to find a compromise to end the shutdown, said Representative Reid Ribble, a Wisconsin Republican.
The number of Republicans, including Representatives Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania and Peter King of New York, pressing Boehner to call a vote on a Senate-passed spending bill free of Obamacare-related measures had grown to 20 by today, enough to pass a clean bill if all Democrats joined in. Five of them met with Boehner before he and other congressional leaders met with President Barack Obama at the White House.
“There’s a group of us -- Charlie Dent, myself and other pragmatists -- that are just spit-balling some ideas” to “help leadership bring an end to this,” said New York Representative Michael Grimm, who attended the meeting.
Boehner said after the White House session that, while “a polite conversation” took place, Obama refused to negotiate over the shutdown, signaling no movement to resolve the impasse.
Debt Issue
According to two lawmakers who participated in the earlier gathering with Boehner, the speaker told them he wants to shift the focus to a long-term agreement to address the nation’s debt that would also avoid a clash over raising the U.S. debt limit later this month. The lawmakers requested anonymity when discussing the meeting.
Representative Michael Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, also part of the group, said Boehner “very clearly wants a long-term resolution that puts the country on a more solid economic and financial footing.”
Michael Steel, the speaker’s spokesman, didn’t comment on specific meetings with members, saying his boss “constantly listens to members from every part of our conference.”
The anti-shutdown wing of the party is growing, including Virginia Representatives Frank Wolf and Scott Rigell.
Their judgment is that the party is being hurt by pursuing a strategy first championed by Republican Senator Ted Cruz ofTexas, a freshman lawmaker aligned with the small-government Tea Party movement who attacked Obamacare on Sept. 24 in a 21-hour speech on the Senate floor.
‘Bad Bill’
The Republicans pushing Boehner to work out an end to the government shutdown also oppose Obamacare. Many of them have served in Congress longer than most Tea Party members and fought against the health-care measure before it became law in 2010 and since then have sought to roll it back. Now they say that in the face of united opposition to such efforts by the Senate’s Democratic majority, Republicans must move on.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

“It’s clear that you aren’t going to be successful,” said Wolf, who is serving his 17th term in the House. “You can argue about Obamacare, it’s a bad, bad bill. But you fight that in a different way, you don’t shut the government down when we are at war,” said Wolf, whose Northern Virginia district is home to many of the idled federal workers and contractors.
Ribble said he is among about 40 House Republicans and Democrats who, during a meeting yesterday, discussed a compromise involving repealing a medical device tax as part of a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government. Grimm confirmed this was among the options pitched to Boehner.
Democratic Support
Repealing the 2.3 percent tax on medical equipment mandated under Obamacare won the support of 34 Senate Democrats and every Republican in March as part of a budget blueprint.
Lawmakers frustrated with the Tea Party’s outsized influence have been working behind the scenes for weeks. Ribble has spoken out during his party’s past five conference meetings to implore Boehner to redirect his party’s priorities to the entitlement programs-- Medicare and Social Security -- that pose the greatest threat to the nation’s fiscal future.
“There are a lot of sidebar conversations going on between regular House members,” Ribble said.
Even as Boehner is now engaging these members, their ideas may be overtaken if Obama and Boehner broaden negotiations to the debt ceiling. The president, saying he is “exasperated,” yesterday stressed that he won’t negotiate with Republicans on the budget until they reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling without conditions.
‘Converging’ Talks
Still, Representative Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Budget Committee, said House leaders see talks “converging” over a spending deal and the debtceiling. “From the get-go, we’ve wanted to get a budget agreement to grow this economy and get this debt under control,” he said.
Michigan Representative Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, also said “we’re at a point where we need a broader solution here.”
Camp said Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew called him the night of Oct. 1 to remind him that the U.S. has used “all of the extraordinary measures” to extend the nation’s borrowing power, slated to be exhausted on Oct. 17.
Unlike past fiscal feuds, this dispute is more about the health law and less about the amount ofgovernment spending. The U.S. budget deficit in June was 4.3 percent of gross domestic product, down from 10.1 percent in February 2010 and the narrowest since November 2008, when Obama was elected to his first term, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the Treasury Department and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
‘Some Movement’
Rigell said some Republicans opposed to the strategy pursued by their House leaders remained mum until now because “there was a chance we could have gotten some movement.”
Still others have kept silent, he said, because of the threat of a primary challenge from Tea Party-backed candidates who may accuse them of breaching conservative principles.
After the 2010 Census, Republicans who control the majority of state legislatures redrew many House districts to shore up vulnerable lawmakers by boosting the concentration of friendly partisan voters in their districts and packing Democrats into urban pockets. The process is called gerrymandering and both parties are adept at it.
Obama Districts
According to David Wasserman, who analyzes House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, 79 of the 236 House Republicans serving during the last shutdown resided in districts that Clinton won in 1992. Today, just 17 of the 232 House Republicans are in districts that Obama won in 2012.
The redrawn lines mean the greater risks to incumbents often come from within their own party, which discourages working across the aisle, said Jim Nussle, a former Republican representative and budget director under President George W. Bush.
He also cited rapid turnover during the past two election cycles that has led to “a lot of very green people who’ve never even passed an amendment” in a subcommittee and don’t understand the legislative process.
“They’re not experienced legislators, they’re worried about primaries at home, and the new media is making it difficult for them to stake out any other position than the extreme position,” Nussle said.
He recalled the last partial government shutdown in 1995-96, when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress and had unified policy positions with goals for a revision of the welfare system, changes in Medicare, and a balanced budget.
“I look at this and I just shake my head,” said Nussle. “This is nothing like last time,” he said. “It’s a very naïve and ignorant understanding of how to govern.”
Rigell said the party’s current predicament isn’t surprising. “We’ve essentially gerrymandered ourselves into this,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Heidi Przybyla in Washington at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jodi Schneider at[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; Jeanne Cummings at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Fri 04 Oct 2013, 00:40

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Obama to House GOP: 'Take a Vote, Stop This Farce’

by **Cals** Fri 04 Oct 2013, 00:40

U.S. Politics Live
Around-the-clock political news and analysis from Reuters. Follow @ReutersPolitics for more.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Fri 04 Oct 2013, 01:05

Buffett Says U.S. to Approach, Not Cross, Point of Idiocy
By Noah Buhayar & Zachary Tracer - Oct 3, 2013 9:27 PM GMT+0800

Warren Buffett, the billionaire chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said he expects Congress to resolve a stalemate over the U.S. debt ceiling before it seriously harms the country.

“We will go right up to the point of extreme idiocy, but we won’t cross it,” he said today in an interview on CNBC.

Enlarge image[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., speaks at Georgetown University in Washington on Sept. 19, 2013. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

1:18

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- House Speaker John Boehner speaks with reporters about his meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House and the U.S. government shutdown. Boehner said Obama refused to negotiate in a meeting with top congressional leaders about the government shutdown. (Source: Bloomberg)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

9:37

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speak about negotiations on the U.S. budget and debt ceiling. They speak after meeting with President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the White House. (Source: Bloomberg)
Republicans and Democrats are deadlocked on spending legislation, leading to a partial government shutdown and the furlough of about 800,000 federal employees. They’re also debating whether to raise the government’s borrowing authority. Failing to do so by Oct. 17 could trigger a default, PresidentBarack Obama’s administration has said.
“If it goes one second beyond the debt limit, that will not do us in,” Buffett said. “If it goes a year beyond, I mean, that would be unbelievable.”
Republicans in the U.S. House stalled government-funding measures in an effort to delay or curtail the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature health-insurance law. Buffett today faulted the approach by some Republicans to budget negotiations.
“When the United States government issues bonds, it says ‘the full faith and credit of the United States,’” Buffett said. “It didn’t say ‘the full faith and credit of the United States unless one political party is unhappy about some extraneous issue.’”
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was little changed at 2.63 percent at 8:48 a.m. in New York, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices. Treasuries (BUSY) lost 2.4 percent this year through yesterday after returning 2 percent in 2012, according to Bloomberg World Bond Indexes.
‘Bare Minimum’
Buffett, 83, has supported the president’s health legislation. In an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Betty Liu last year, he said it’s a “step in the right direction” on the top challenges facing the U.S. and its businesses.
Representative Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, described a delay of the individual mandate to purchase health insurance as the “bare minimum” Republicans should accept as part of the spending bill. And, he said, the party should attach other conditions to the debt ceiling.
“What’s going to hurt our economy is our failure to deal with our spending trajectory, which is going to bankrupt us,” the Texas Republican has said. “Anything that has ever passed for fiscal responsibility in Washington, D.C. has almost exclusively been attached to a debt ceiling.”
‘No Precedent’
Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein are among financial executives who have said failing to raise the debt limit could disrupt the economy. Blankfein said yesterday after a meeting with Obama that members of Congress shouldn’t use the nation’s borrowing limit for political goals.
“There’s a precedent for a government shutdown; there’s no precedent for a default,” Blankfein said. “You can re-litigate these policy issues in a political forum, but you shouldn’t use the threat of causing the U.S. to fail on its obligations to repay its debt as a cudgel.”
Henry Paulson, who ran New York-based Goldman Sachs before Blankfein and served as Treasury Department secretary under Republican George W. Bush, joined Buffett today in the CNBC interview and agreed that Congress would resolve the dispute before too much damage is done to the country.
“These guys may threaten to take their mother hostage, but they’ll never hurt their mother,” Paulson said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Noah Buhayar in New York at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; Zachary Tracer in New York at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Kraut at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **kppl** Mon 07 Oct 2013, 23:27

hit new low compared to last weeks low...abit more lows to come...keep watch these 2 critical weeks...

by **kppl** Wed 09 Oct 2013, 01:58

Obama nak bercakap-cakap...

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by **Cals** Wed 09 Oct 2013, 02:32

kppl wrote:Obama nak bercakap-cakap...

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

lol lets take the default out for a ride and see how it turns out Giggle

by **kppl** Wed 09 Oct 2013, 02:36

Cals wrote:
kppl wrote:Obama nak bercakap-cakap...

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
lol lets take the default out for a ride and see how it turns out

No solution yet, however SnP 500 hit new low.....once shutdown is lifted....Bulls going to return....

by **kppl** Thu 10 Oct 2013, 17:41

Futures are up.

Debt-Limt Prospects Gain as Both Sides Open to Short Deal

U.S. lawmakers for the first time yesterday embraced one possible path out of the fiscal impasse, a short-term deal to avoid default, even as they remained far apart on how to make it happen.
The sticking point remains clear: House Republicans prefer to attach policy conditions to a deal, and Senate Democrats are against them. Any deal also would require finding a way forward that allows both sides to declare victory, though their differences make such a compromise difficult.
Also, the parties must resolve their related fight on ending the partial government shutdown, which only adds to the stakes as the standoff drags into its 10th day.
“We’re not going to vote against making sure that America pays its bills,” Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking Democrat in the House, said after leaving a meeting with President Barack Obama yesterday. “We think it ought to be longer-term.”
Obama has already said he could accept a short-term deal without policy conditions.

The U.S. is entering the final week before it runs out of borrowing authority with a flurry of activity. Lawmakers are looking for a way to break the deadlock that has brought the country into a partial government shutdown and close to the $16.7 trillion debt limit.
Lew Testimony
Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew will testify before the Senate Finance Committee at 8 a.m. in Washington. House Republicans will meet at 10 a.m. in the Capitol to discuss their strategy. All Senate Democrats will meet with Obama at 1:45 p.m. in the White House. At 4:35 p.m., 18 House Republican leaders and committee chairmen will meet with Obama.
Senate Democrats will press ahead with their preferred plan, which would push the next debt-limit fight into 2015 and include no policy conditions.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is confident he can muster the needed 60 votes to advance the bill in an initial Oct. 12 test vote, said the Senate Democratic aide. Reid’s long-term bill, which could reach the House on Oct. 16, may put pressure on House Speaker John Boehner to act.
Reid must gain support from at least six Republicans. One way to do that would be to promise votes on Republican-backed amendments that Democrats could defeat, the aide said. A second vote with a 60-vote threshold would be required.

Missed Payments
If the U.S. doesn’t raise the debt limit by Oct. 17, the government will have $30 billion plus income revenue to pay its bills. It would start missing scheduled payments, including benefits, salaries and interest, between Oct. 22 and Oct. 31, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) climbed 0.1 percent to 1,656.40 yesterday in New York.
Rates on Treasury bills due on Oct. 17 rose 20 basis points, or 0.20 percentage point to 0.478 percent at 5 p.m. in New York. They were negative as recently as Sept. 26. The benchmark 10-year yield rose three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 2.66 percent, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices.
“The current political deadlock in the United States is needlessly putting at risk the stability and growth not only of the U.S. but also the world economy,” Angel Gurria, the secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said in a statement. “We still see the probability of failing to raise the debt ceiling as low, but as the government shutdown drags on, the level of concern is ratcheting up.”

Weighing Proposal
House Republicans are weighing a short-term increase in the debt limit, and Senate Democrats aren’t ruling one out, according to aides of both parties who spoke on condition of anonymity yesterday to discuss their strategies.
Still, House Republicans haven’t decided how long an extension they would support or whether it would include policy conditions and how to advance it, a House Republican aide said. One possibility is an extension of four to six weeks.
Republican leaders have been meeting with party members to talk about ideas. RepresentativePaul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the House Budget Committee, advocates starting broader budget negotiations with Democrats.
The shutdown and debt-limit debate have hurt Republicans’ standing with voters, according to a Gallup poll released yesterday. It found that 28 percent of Americans view the party favorably, down 10 percentage points since September and at the lowest point since Gallup began asking the question in 1992.

Senate Leaders
Senate leaders would be open to a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, a Senate Democratic aide said yesterday. Democrats would insist that any subsequent debt-limit increases wouldn’t require agreement by the parties on long-term fiscal and health-care policy.
Boehner, an Ohio Republican, on Oct. 8 rejected Obama’s idea of passing a debt-ceiling increase now and negotiating later on broader fiscal issues and the health-care law. Boehner labeled that “unconditional surrender” and instead sought immediate talks with Obama.
Advancing a debt-limit bill without major policy conditions through the House could prove difficult and might require Boehner to seek Democratic votes. Republicans control a 232-200 majority in the House.

‘Another Downgrade’
“If you had a clean debt ceiling increase without any kind of reforms to control spending that would probably lead to another downgrade in our credit ratings,” Representative Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican and head of the Republican Study Committee, told reporters yesterday. The group includes lawmakers who advocate for smaller government.
Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia met yesterday with the top two House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi of California and Hoyer.
Democrats, who control 54 seats in the 100-member chamber, would need the support of at least six Republicans on procedural votes to pass their bill.
The bill would suspend the debt ceiling through Dec. 31, 2014. Because the Treasury Department can use what are called extraordinary measures to stave off default, another increase wouldn’t be needed until sometime in 2015. The previous debt-limit suspension expired on May 18 and the extraordinary measures are lasting five months.

Senate Republicans
Some Senate Republicans, including Susan Collins of Maine, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, didn’t rule out backing the Democrats’ plan. They said they must first see details.
One Republican senator -- Mark Kirk of Illinois -- said he would support a “clean” debt-ceiling measure.
At a White House news conference Oct. 8, the president again insisted that he wouldn’t negotiate under the risk of default or a government shutdown, comparing Republicans to hostage-takers and extortionists.
The government shutdown started Oct. 1 after Republicans insisted that further funding for many programs must be tied to a one-year delay in the mandate that individuals purchase health insurance.
Obama and Senate Democrats refused, and the resulting furloughs and agency shutdowns have slowed mortgage closings, small-business loans and nutrition assistance to poor mothers. Some programs, such as Social Security, continue uninterrupted.
The House continued a series of bipartisan votes to fund narrow pieces of the government, including the Food and Drug Administration and military death benefits. The House is now scheduled to be in session on Saturday, Oct. 12.
Obama and Senate Democrats reject the piecemeal approach, saying Republicans shouldn’t get to pick and choose politically popular items.

by **Cals** Thu 10 Oct 2013, 22:45

Republican Leaders Said to Offer 6-Week Debt Cap Without Add-Ons
By Roxana Tiron, Richard Rubin & Phil Mattingly - Oct 10, 2013 10:14 PM GMT+0800

House Republican leaders will present their members with a proposal to raise the debt limit for six weeks without policy conditions, said a congressional aide familiar with the details. The move would lessen the risk of a U.S. default one week from a lapse in borrowing authority.

The proposal wouldn’t end the partial government shutdown as Republicans try to shift the debate back to spending issues, said the aide, who asked for anonymity to discuss strategy.

Enlarge image[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) speaks to reporters after meeting with the House Republican caucus on Capitol Hill on October 8, 2013. Photographer: Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Under the plan, the Treasury Department wouldn’t be able to use so-called extraordinary measures to further extend borrowing authority, creating a hard six-week limit, said a second aide requesting anonymity to discuss the proposal.

House Republicans began meeting at 10 a.m. in the Capitol and Speaker John Boehner is scheduled to speak to reporters at 11 a.m.

President Barack Obama said he would accept a short-term increase in the debt limit without policy conditions and that he would negotiate on broader fiscal and health-care policy after the debt limit is raised and the shutdown ends.

Many Republicans want to tie the debt-limit increase to party priorities such as cuts in entitlement programs. It’s unclear whether rank-and-file members will agree to the leadership’s proposal.

Oct. 17

Treasuries and U.S. stocks declined this month amid the standoff. If the U.S. doesn’t raise the debt limit by Oct. 17, the government will have $30 billion plus incoming revenue to pay its bills. It would start missing scheduled payments, including benefits, salaries and interest, between Oct. 22 and Oct. 31, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew warned Congress today that “uncertainty” over the debt limit is starting to stress financial markets.

“Trying to time a debt-limit increase to the last minute could be very dangerous,” Lew told the Senate Finance Committee. “If Congress does not act and the U.S. suddenly cannot pay its bills, the repercussions would be serious.”

House Republican leaders and selected committee chairmen are set to meet at the White House at 4:35 p.m. today. Democrats will meet with Obama at 1:45 p.m.

Obama and other Democrats have insisted that they won’t negotiate on policy conditions attached to the debt limit. By making that their hard-line position and warning of the consequences of default, they opened the door to a shorter-term debt-limit increase.

Paying Bills

“We’re not going to vote against making sure that America pays its bills,” Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking Democrat in the House, said after leaving a meeting with Obama yesterday. “We think it ought to be longer-term.”

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.6 percent at 9:30 a.m. in New York on optimism among some traders that a deal is closer. Rates on Treasury bills due Oct. 17 dropped for the first time in six days, declining 15 basis points to 0.333 percent at 9:47 a.m. New York time, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices. The benchmark 10-year yield rose five basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 2.71 percent, the highest level since Sept. 23.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats will press ahead with their preferred plan, which would push the next debt-limit fight into 2015 and include no policy conditions.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is confident he can muster the needed 60 votes to advance the bill in an initial Oct. 12 test vote, said a Senate Democratic aide. Reid’s long-term bill, which could reach the House on Oct. 16, may put pressure onBoehner, an Ohio Republican, to act.

Seeking Republicans

Reid must gain support from at least six Republicans. One way to do that would be to promise votes on Republican-backed amendments that Democrats could defeat, the aide said. A second vote with a 60-vote threshold would be required.

Republican leaders have been meeting with party members to talk about ideas. RepresentativePaul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the House Budget Committee, advocates starting broader budget negotiations with Democrats.

“Within the Republican caucus, there’s no agreement, and this is the challenge we’ve had all along,” Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said today on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.

Van Hollen said lawmakers “shouldn’t be tying raising the debt ceiling to any specific demand.” Still, he said, “we welcome the opportunity to have a discussion on the budget.”

Voters Dissatisfied

The shutdown and debt-limit debate have hurt Republicans’ standing with voters, according to a Gallup poll released yesterday. It found that 28 percent of Americans view the party favorably, down 10 percentage points since September and at the lowest point since Gallup began asking the question in 1992.

Senate leaders would be open to a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, a Senate Democratic aide said yesterday. Democrats would insist that any subsequent debt-limit increases wouldn’t require agreement by the parties on long-term fiscal and health-care policy.

Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican, said lawmakers may need more time to on the debt ceiling “to make sure we get it right.” Republicans, he told reporters yesterday, “are not for defaulting.”

Advancing a debt-limit bill without major policy conditions through the House could prove difficult and might require Boehner to seek Democratic votes. Republicans control a 232-200 majority in the House.

‘Clean’ Increase

“If you had a clean debt-ceiling increase without any kind of reforms to control spending that would probably lead to another downgrade in our credit ratings,” Representative Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican and head of the Republican Study Committee, told reporters yesterday. The group includes lawmakers who advocate for smaller government.

Democrats, who control 54 seats in the 100-member Senate, would need the support of at least six Republicans on procedural votes to pass their bill.

The bill from Reid would suspend the debt ceiling through Dec. 31, 2014. Because the Treasury Department can use what are called extraordinary measures to stave off default, another increase wouldn’t be needed until sometime in 2015. The previous debt-limit suspension expired on May 18 and the extraordinary measures are lasting five months.

Some Senate Republicans, including Susan Collins of Maine, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, didn’t rule out backing the Democrats’ plan. They said they must first see details.

One Republican senator -- Mark Kirk of Illinois -- said he would support a “clean” debt-ceiling measure.

Shutdown Effects

The government shutdown started Oct. 1 after Republicans insisted that further funding for many programs must be tied to a one-year delay in the mandate that individuals purchase health insurance.

Obama and Senate Democrats refused, and the resulting furloughs and agency shutdowns have slowed mortgage closings, small-business loans and nutrition assistance to poor mothers. Some programs, such as Social Security, continue uninterrupted.

The House continued a series of bipartisan votes to fund narrow pieces of the government, including the Food and Drug Administration and military death benefits. The House is now scheduled to be in session on Saturday, Oct. 12.

Obama and Senate Democrats reject the piecemeal approach, saying Republicans shouldn’t get to pick and choose politically popular items.

To contact the reporters on this story: Roxana Tiron in Washington at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; Richard Rubin in Washington at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; Phil Mattingly in Washington at[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by Sponsored content