Bernanke's Words Hurt Commodities
Stocks futures have weakened on the stronger dollar... due to Mr. Bernanke's comments that monetary policy could be tightened as a recovery takes hold. Those comments have sent commodity and commodity stocks like BHP Billiton, BP and Harmony Gold lower.
Global employment improving? A day after Australia reported a better than excpected employment report, Canada has done the same. Their unemployment rate unexpectedly fell a sharp .4 percent to 8.4 percent.
Talk about catchup: China's Shanghai Composite up 4.8 percent overnight...they have been on vacation, so this was the first trading day in October. China's Vice Premier said they would continue their stimulus program and loose monetary policy. Stocks like Taiwan Semi up on heavy pre-open volume.
Elsewhere:
1) Chevron Corp. said its third-quarter earnings will be higher than the previous quarter, boosted by higher oil prices and gains from asset sales. This is hardly a surprise, since first and second quarter earnings were the lowest in years. Q2 earnings came in at $0.87; analyst consensus for the current quarter is $1.39.
2) Marriott: who's right? Interesting divergence of opinion a day after Marriott reported better earnings. Two firms downgrade, one upgrades.
a) Susquehanna downgrades: "While Marriott is doing as good a job as could possibly be expected given the immense challenges facing the lodging industry, we simply believe the recent run in the stock has priced in more of a recovery than we think the industry is capable of producing over the next few years."
b) Soleil also downgraded "as the market digests the fact that a lodging recovery is likely to lag the broader economy given the tradionally slower rebound in corporate-group business."
c) But BofA/Merrill upgrades, saying "all of MAR's earnings drivers are likely headed higher driven by strong unit growth."
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