Market briefing---Mike (fast)
NYSE---Deb (fast)
Nasdaq---Anthony (slow)
welcome from us in the capital, washington d c, the federal reserve says spending is firming and it leaves benchmark interest rates unchanged at 1%. state and federal regulators including massachusetts state secretary william galvan charge putt nam putnam investments. half naked men and women and a $2 million pool party in sardinia, jars got a look -- jurors got a look at the fraud trial of dennis kozlowski, a party prosecutors say tyco paid half of. the fed maintaining a policy they said has helped the labor market and encouraged consumers and businesses to spend. the 12 voting members of the federal open market committee left the overnight bank lending rate at the lowest since 1958 according to a statement following today’s meeting, the committee made just one three-word change. “spending is firming” and the labor market appears to be stabilizing, the fomc said, on september 16th the members had said the labor market has been weakening. that’s not true any more. the economy created 57,000 jobs in september. other than that change members again separated the outlook from economic growth from inflation saying the risks to growth are balanced and “the probability though minor of an unwelcome fall in inflation exceeds that of a rise in inflation from its already low level.” same language as last time. most important for investors, the fed once again said “rates will stay on hold.” in
>> just how long a considerable period is is open to date. euro dollars futures rose. suggesting a rate increase wouldn’t occur until june. going into the meeting it was believed to be april. before the rate decision, the latest data showed increasing strength in the economy. durable goods orders rose in september for a fourth month in five and consumer confidence increased. orders for items made to last at least three years increase.8% -- increased .8%. the august revision was a big change. orders in august were previously reported as declining 1.1%. business was a lot stronger than had been thought. excluding transportation equipment, orders jumped 1.2%, the fifth straight increase. bookings for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, a proxy for future business rose 3.9%. the government uses shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft to construct quarterly gross domestic product figures and they rose 2.5%. meanwhile, the conference board said its consumer board increased to 81.1 from 77 a month earlier.
>> they expect more jobs to be available within the next six months. that’s the most since june of last year. the dow jones industrials finished up over a percentage point, today, as the federal reserve decision sparked some late buying. the dow finishing up 140 points on the day, 1.46%. the volume on the new york stock exchange 1.6 billion shares. that is above average. the s&p 500 finished higher on the day by almost 16 points. the fed’s decision to do nothing with interest rates helped investors make decisions about equities and that did result in the late-day rally. deborah kostroun is on the trading floor of the new york stock exchange. she has more on that. deb?
>> mike, even before the fed decision we had the dow jones industrial average up 60-65 points but by the close of trading we doubled that -- actually, even more than that, up 140 points, closing at our best level the day. volume really picking up after that fed decision, and in fact, 1.6 billion shares, i’m going to have to go check on my bloomberg terminal. we haven’t seen that kind of volume in quite some time. generally we have been running right about average or even below average. that tells you the tale of today. in fact, our up volume 1.2 billion shares have decidedly a very positive day of that 1.6 billion. in addition, it looks like not only the market is picking up steam but also the economy. we have the consumer confidence report coming in better than expected, and consumer confidence rose, coming in better than expected mainly because the labor market is picking up, and even the fed -- even though they had no change in interest rates they actually did say the labor market is stabilizing. the one change in their policy statement. in addition, something that traders obviously are talking about, third quarter earnings, were looking at the tally of third quarter growth, 21.6%, fastest growth since the first quarter of 2000, 65% of the 330 companies in the s&p 500 that have already released their earnings exceeded estimates by thomson financial. that’s a pretty good track record. in today’s session kind of helping out semiconductors. that was the biggest gainer in the s&p 500, and taiwan semiconductor seeing their third quarter profit increase fivefold by the highest in five years as they were running plants at full capacity to keep up with demand. that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. we heard two months ago they were really picking up with their orders. back to you in the studio.
>> deborah kostroun, volume on the new york stock exchange the highest since july 17th. let’s check the nasdaq numbers, the nasdaq finishing up over 2.5 percentage points on the day, a 49-point gain with volume on the nasdaq also very strong, over two billion shares today. anthony massucci standing by in times square at the nasdaq marketsite, anthony, a busy day.
>> it was i busy day, michael, a big end of the day rally and traders talked about the nasdaq being range-bound, the dow and the s&p being range-bound but the common theme is they’re bouncing off 50-day moving averages. basically what that means is as the charts go higher, when these averages are dropping they keep stopping at certain points and going higher. we’re seeing the nasdaq bouncing up, today―i talked to mike ritigliano at w.j. bonsonti and he said the uptrend is still there and that really is the bottom line, even when the markets are falling they’re continuing to go higher. he said traders on the floor take their cues from the market reaction just like with the fed this afternoon. he said it depends on how the market reacts after the decision. as it was, the market did go higher. he said earnings are robust, basically it was out of the way, waiting to see what the next driver is but in the absence of any negatives looming on the market with that in mind he thinksthinks the market can go highir. microsoft up 1%, the theme is that a company getting a lot of this lawsuit information out of the way, details getting done, the company saying they’re about halfway through clearing the air here, settling with five more states, six states already behind them, 17 states settling out of court. so the company making progress. investors liking that somewhat. sending the stock up 1%. we also heard from palm today, the stock up 6.3%. that was a 1.60 move and the company they will be buying, handspring, shareholders approval that the two companies should get together, spinning off the operating system which will be sold separately and that news helping boost both stocks . impressive gains on the industries today, semiconductor stocks , 6% the move there, the nasdaq 100 did move up 3% overall. we saw hardware up 3.5%, networking stocks up 4%, companies like apple trading higher but overall traders think that the nasdaq can go higher from here. back to you, michael.
>> anthony massucci. putnam investments is now the first mutual fund company charged in the widening investigation into improper fund trading. assistant secretary of the commonwealth, william galvin, along with the s.e.c. charged putnam and two former brokers with securities fraud. he said the brokers timed trades in such a way that cheated ordinary investors out of their money. we spoke with him by phone earlier today.
>> they picked the pockets of their own customers by engaging in market timing for their own profit. we believe that in excess of $700,000 was earned by them, by these moves.
>> galvin said putnam knew about the trades and took no action against the individuals carrying them out. galvin also said the company allowed improper trading by a union retirement plan. a putnam spokesman did not return calls for comment nor did the lawyers for the two former brokers. putnam is a unit of marsh & mclennan. the federal reserve as we reported stands pat once again keeping interest rates at 1% but treasuries reversed course upon hearing the fomc statement.
