Greece Has 9% Rally on Industrial Production
By: EU industrial production came in better than expected, which is helping to lift European and US stocks.
Greece is up five straight days (a 9 percent rally), but other countries have seen significant gains in the last four days as well:
Spain up 10.5 percent
Italy up 8.2 percent
France up 7.0 percent
Ireland up 4.8 percent
Germany up 4.4 percent
Metal stocks are trading up here and in London. The rally has benefited risk-basked stock, but also helping today was Weir Group, a huge engineering firm based in Scotland that specializes in services to the mineral and and oil and gas business, said they expect profits for the second half to be "significantly" above profits for the same period in 2009
Maybe the modest rally can get the IPO market going. There are at least 6 IPOs in the pipeline this week, including the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), which is seeking to sell 11.7 million shares between $27 and $29 ($328 million at the midpoint).
They are nation's largest options exchange, with a 31 percent market share based on volume. The derivatives business in general has been growing fast, far outperforming the stagnant equities business: they booked $426 million in sales last year, twice the revenues generated in 2005, though there is concern that the explosive growth in options and futures may be slowing.
They're also one of the last member-owned exchanges; they will demutualize as part of the public offering.
Elsewhere:
1) what we don't have on this modest rally is volume; it was a pathetic 4.2 billion shares on the NYSE consolidated tape Friday; an average day is 5 billion.
2) BP falls 4 percent pre-open as shareholders await the Board of Directors' decision on the status of the company's second quarter dividend.
3) Cablevision announced a $1.4 billion acquisition of Bresnan Communications, a major cable provider in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah. The deal will give Cablevision access to more than 300,000 subscribers in that region and will help diversify Cablevision's subscriber base, which is primarily centered around the New York City area.
Separately, Cablevision also announced a $500 million stock buyback.
4) the rollout of circuit breakers is going according to plan; the NYSE is rolling out an additional 49 securities today, on top of the 5 on Friday; Nasdaq is fully implementing its circuit breaker plan today.
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