Market briefing --- Matt (slow)
NYSE --- Lane (medium)
Energy --- Su (fast)
Manufacturer --- Carmen (fast)
>> this hour, intel will give its mid quarter update tomorrow. and we are going to dissect that announcement before it happens. in a number of ways. including wanlists from pacific american securities. but first, earnings released after the close of trade today. hope knavian shares are rising in extended hours. new jersey’s biggest home builder is boosting the full-year forecast. hovnanian expects to make $5.23 a share for the year ending in october. that tops the average analyst forecast by nearly 25%. as for the last quarter, earnings rose to $1.06 a share. again, topping expectations. shares up today nearly 2% in regular trade. let’s wrap the number up, the broader markets here today. dow and s&p 500 on the rise. and nasdaq finishing lower today, albeit slightly. a lot of air rows there for you all at once. you see the nasdaq down not even .1%. on to the volume of the nyse. 1.2 billion shares. that is less than average. some of the broader indemples in the marketplace or nasdaq volume k. do it that way. 1.5 billion shares. half a billion shares traded missing somewhere. we’re averaging almost two billion year to date. still light trade. and there is a―there is the broader indices for you, new york composite up .3%. amex, little change. and the small caps, .2% higher themselves. there is that all-inclusive, the broadest measure. .3% higher. bonds, they say, there you can see them down. the dollar mixed. and the latest trade, the yen bouncing back. the pound and euro were also up excuse me, down in new york trade. as i just mentioned, light volume on the new york stock exchange. well below the average for the fifth straight day. lane bajardi wrapping it up at the big board. lane?
>> more on that story. same story we’ve been seeing for the last several days here. and really the oil story was key here as it was in the previous session here, matt. and the late day action, that’s all the gains we closed with. although not very much in the grand scheme of things, higher on the session. take a look at the names that really jumped out on this session. this one just surging. and really seeing momentum gain throughout the day. seeing it up over 10%. and normally when a company makes an acquisition, the stock goes down. not in this case. the largest maker of lawn maoer engines, you can see over a longer term chart, that stock has done quite well. it’s up 22% year to date. commerce bancorp, this is the new jersey commerce bancorp. it is fast growing around the new york met toll pan area. surging by nearly 5% in a midday call says it sees meeting or beeth the consensus estimates for the year and the second quarter. the estimate of 78 cents a share there. 2004, $3.19, they’re going to surpass that. a semiconductor that we’re watching is lower. fairchild and other chip makers said unpredictable customer orders may prevent it from meeting the sales forecast for this quarter. that led to a drop in the semiconductor index as well as we had some negativity surrounding the seminames, philadelphia semiconductor index was down 2.25% on the day. matt, back to you.
>> all right. lane, thanks very much. another market active to day, you know, you can say what a difference makes, really. crude oil posing the biggest plunth in six months today. an opec member said the cartel should pump as much oil as possible to lower prices. they’re meeting in day route tomorrow. we’ll be there live all day with reports. crude futures down 5.6% in new york trading. you see there below $40 a barrel. the news also coming out that a proposed boost in opec production had an effect on gasoline futures as well. they were down over 5% themselves. sue keenan on that double energy beat today joins us now with details.
>> and this loss today erases all of the gains yesterday with the exception of a .1% in yesterday’s gains were the biggest we had seen in oil futures since they began trading in the early 1980’s. opec prepares to meet tomorrow in beirut. cutters energy minister is signaling that more oil is on the way. he says that opec is near a consensus to boost the production quota by 11%. saudi arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter said it will make sure there is enough supply. opec’s goal here, to keep prices below $40 a barrel.
>> we’re seeing $42 oil. it’s clearly too high. it’s clearly not acceptable. and we’re determined to do whatever we can with the other opec countries to bring it down.
>> tom benz, broke we are b.n.p. power brokers says with most members producing at capacity, it’s not clear how much oil will be actually available. oppenheimer senior vice president for oil and gas research shares the view that opec historically produces beyond the quotas. he predicts oil moves lower for the rest of the week.
>> i expect that the market will give opec some credit and oil prices will ease, we’re probably going to be lower by $2 or $3 before the end of this week.
>> that would mean oil would drop another $1 by friday. gates says it is not a shortage of oil but the fear of potential shortage of oil due to tension in the mideast that continue to drive oil and gas futures higher. he said it ised 15ds a barrel lower without these concerns. >> our current forecast for oil prices which basically reflect the future prices is about $37. and we expect oil prices will probably move slightly above $37 in the third quarter and slightly below $37 in the first quarter.
>> again, he thinks we go lower by the end of the week as much as a dollar lower. that will put us below $39.
>> all right. what a segue this is from oil to auto. auto sales, total sales up from a year ago. consumers continuing to take varning of incentives. carmen roberts break it down by manufacturer. carmen?
>> thank you. general motors and daimlerchrysler say the sales in may rose as record gasoline prices failed to fill curb demand for trucks. and that is still working for them.
>> you can say that fuel prices will definitely influence vehicle sales. but it’s really tough to go into a dealership and be offered $5,000 cash back and resist that.
>> it looks like fuel prices should be generally peaking out or at least as we get into summer then easing. time will tell on. that but so far people are really buying more trucks, more s.u.v.’s than they ever have.
>> now it should be noted that g.m. and ford added rebaits last month on pickups and sport utility vehicles or s.u.v.’s. a decline in ford’s s.u.v. sales, including the explorer er and expedition led to a 3.1% sales drop in may sales. g.m., the largest automaker, says sales rose 2.6%. and daimlerchrysler, the fifth largest automaker says u.s. sales were up .7%. toyota and honda posted record u.s. sales in may taking more market share. daimlerchrysler, g.m. and toyota increased sales by using the bigger cash rebaits and low interest loans. a marketing research company says consensus rose from 1.6% to more than $3600 per vehicle. improved sales in may were not enough to shrink inventory levels as asian automakers continued to take share from g.m., ford, and chrysler. automakers have 88 days of inventory on hand. that is compared to a seasonal norm of 73 days.
>> expect over the next two to three months inventory levels to come down. largely because of high incentives. we don’t expect them to come down to levels that are, you know, low enough to prevent, you know, potential production cuts in the third quarter of this year.
>> and as we told you, ford is cugget its production for the third quarter. he says higher inventories and gasoline prices may cause consumers to shift from light trucks and s.u.v.’s to the fuel efficient cars. that would hurt the bottom line because the trucks and the big s.u.v.’s have higher profit margins. matt, back to you.
>> carmen, thank you very much. our next guest, the chief economist of the bank of america is going to discuss the outlook for the labor economy. of course, the jobs data coming out friday. he’s expecting the momentum in the labor market to continue. mickey levy, chief economist at bank of america is our guest.
