In Between Days

by CC January 23, 2012 12:46 am • Commentary

Dshort

The S&P 500 spent the day wallowing in shallow red ink, but a rally at the close nudged the index into the positive territory for a fractional gain of 0.07%. The week tells a better story, with a gain of 2.04%. Thus far, of the thirteen S&P 500 market days in 2012, eleven have been advances, athough three of them were in the 0.02% to 0.07% range. The index has a year-to-date gain of 4.59%. It is 3.54% below its interim high at the end of April 2011.

From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 94.4% above the March 2009 closing low and 16.0% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.

Bloomberg

Oil fell for a fourth day, the euro weakened and U.S. equity futures slid after Greek bondholders said they’ve made their maximum offer in negotiations to prevent the country from defaulting.

Oil lost 0.3 percent to $98.05 a barrel as of 1:26 p.m. in Tokyo. The euro fell 0.3 percent to $1.2891. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) of shares rose 0.1 percent, led by telephone companies and financials. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures slumped 0.3 percent. Silver advanced to a six-week high and wheat and corn futures climbed at least 0.8 percent. Bond risk in Japan dropped to the lowest level in almost three months.

Markets including China, South Korea and Taiwan were shut today for the Lunar New Year holiday. Bondholders are leaving it to the European Union and International Monetary Fund to decide whether to accept a deal on Greece’s debt, said Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance and representative for the private creditors. EU leaders will meet in Brussels today to discuss budget rules, a financial firewall to protect indebted states and a ban on imports of Iranian oil.

Reuters

Research In Motion’s Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have bowed to investor pressure and resigned as co-CEOs, handing the top job to an insider with four years at the struggling BlackBerry maker.

Thorsten Heins, a former Siemens AG executive who has risen steadily through RIM’s upper management ranks since joining the Canadian company in late 2007, took over as CEO on Saturday, RIM said on Sunday.

The shift ends the two-decade long partnership of Lazaridis and Balsillie atop a once-pioneering technology company that now struggles against Apple and Google.

WSJ

Economics, FedSpeak and Eurozone Follies:

Monday

Eurogroup meeting of eurozone finance ministers

Tuesday

Ecofin meeting of EU finance ministers (totally different than Monday’s meeting!)

Spain sells bills

Treasury sells 2-year notes

FOMC meeting, Day One

President Obama’s State of the Union address

Wednesday

Germany sells bonds, er, bunds

Pending Home Sales index for December

Treasury sells 5-year notes

FOMC policy announcement

Ben Bernanke Press Conference! We’ll bring the popcorn! Or rather we’ll eat Xanax like popcorn.

Thursday

Italy sells bonds

Durable Goods orders for December

Weekly jobless claims

New home sales for December

Leading indicators for December

Treasury auctions 7-year notes

Friday

Italy sells more bills

Fourth-quarter GDP report

University of Michigan consumer sentiment for January

 

Earnings:

Monday

Halliburton

CSX

Western Digital

Zions

Texas Instruments

Tuesday

Advanced Micro Devices

Peabody Energy

Coach

International Game Technology

Johnson & Johnson

Kimberly-Clark

Regions Financial

Travelers

Waters

McDonald’s

KeyCorp

Harley-Davidson

Quest Diagnostic

Baker Hughes

Air Products & Chemicals

Apple

Norfolk Southern

Yahoo

DuPont

EMC

Verizon

Stryker

Total System Services

Altera

CA

Wednesday

Allegheny Technologies

Exelon

General Dynamics

Hess

Murphy Oil

Occidental Petroleum

Textron

United Technologies

Rockwell Automation

Praxair

Mead/Westvaco

Corning

Bemis

ADP

Abbott Laboratories

Symantec

Stanley Black & Decker

SanDisk

Owens-Illinois

Noble

LSI

Jacogs Engineering

E*TRADE

Wellpoint

Dover

Motorola Solutions

Xerox

St. Jude Medical

Southern Co.

Molex

Boeing

ConocoPhillips

W.W. Grainger

Citrix Systems

Netflix

Varian Medical Systems

Teradyne

Thursday

AutoNation

Baxter International

Bristol-Myers Squibb

Celgene

DeVry

McCormick

3M

Nucor

Precision Castparts

Time Warner Cable

Mead Johnson Nutrition

Lockheed Martin

Eaton

EQT

Colgate-Palmolive

Ball

Airgas

AmerisourceBergen

Amgen

Chubb

Federated Investors

Juniper Networks

Starbucks

Zimmer Holdings

Raytheon

CONSOL Energy

Caterpillar

Invesco

Sherwin-Williams

AT&T

Robert Half

VeriSign

KLA-Tencor

Eastman Chemical

Friday

Chevron

Dominion Resources

Procter & Gamble

T. Rowe Price

D.R. Horton

Honeywell

NextEra Energy

Newell Rubbermaid

Ford

Legg Mason

Altria