Money & Politics --- Mike (fast)
>> hello, i’m michael mckee. welcome back to “money & politics.” while members of congress bashed each other over high oil prices, crude and gasoline fell today. crude down after president bush announced he’s deferring deliveries to the strategic petroleum reserve. analysts say that means little because the reserve’s almost full. they say it punctured some irrational fears driving prices higher. gasoline prices falling for the third day in four. but boone pickens, dallas hedge fund manager who has made billions betting on higher oil prices, tells our brian sullivan that’s still what he expects.
>> we’ll see $80 oil. you’re not going to pin me on when. you do, though, you get me to.
>> i try.
>> but there’s no question that i’ll take $80 before $60, if you’ll give me that spread.
>> for wall street, strong economic news outweighed the drop in oil prices today. sales of existing homes unexpectedly rose .3% in march to an annual rate of 6.92 million. and consumer confidence reached a four-year high in april. investors taking those reports as a warning sign the federal reserve may not be done raising interest rates. the dow jones industrial average closing down 53 points. the s&p 500 down six and the nasdaq down three. the interest rate concerns hit utilities and homebuilders hard. for more on today’s trading action, here’s julie hyman at the new york stock exchange.
>> really a number of different factors affecting stocks today, probably foremost in investors’ minds was the fact that we got a couple of economic reports that beat investors’ expectations. typically, these particular reports, that is, home sales and confidence, not huge in terms of effect on the market . but in this delicate environment where people are paying a lot of attention to what the fed may do next, they were, indeed, important, and raised concerns about the pace of interest rate increases and exactly when the fed will be done, how much further they’ll be raising interest rates. because of the concerns, we saw the s&p 500 having its biggest daily drop in two weeks’ time and those groups seen as most interest-rate-sensitive lost the most in percentage terms. utilities is one example, frequently seen as an alternative to investing in treasuries with relatively high dividend yields. but they were declining today. duke energy dropping over 2%. if you look at homebuilders, we saw these stocks suffering. they suffer when we see bond yields go up because the concern is that higher interest rates will further squeeze the housing markets . m/i homes leading the the pack after coming out with earnings disappointing estimates. and the other piece of what was going on today, president bush coming out with some comments that drove down the energy market and energy shares, as well. so stocks like valero energy, although it came out with profit matching analysts’ estimates and said that profit was higher by 59%, still fell today after earlier touching a 52-week high. what’s interesting is that thus far in the month of april, we really have stocks stawlg stalling out. still, the s&p higher by more than 4% for the year but only up .5% in april. energy has led the most in gains with a 6.5% rise. healthcare has been the biggest drag, falling by 3.7%. i’m julie hyman at the new york stock exchange.
>> speaking of housing, fannie mae and freddie mac regulation coming soon. i’ll ask senate banking committee chairman senator richard shelby of alabama, next on “money & politics.”
点击播报
Listen Money & Politics --- Mike (fast)
>> enron ex-chairman kenneth lay back on the witness stand in his fraud trial in houston today. lay telling jurors he trusted finance chief andrew fast fastow and believed critical newspaper articles that fastow’s off-the-book partnerships were part of a witch hunt. june grasso is covering the trial in houston.
>> it was all about andy fastow today, as former c.f.o. of the company. lay testified that the board and he were feeling confident about fastow because there was no reason at all not to trust what he said. but then they were shocked when they learned that fastow had made $45 million from those off-the-books partnerships that the newspaper stories had been so critical of. lay said at that point they began to suspect their trust in fastow was unfounded. that was just six weeks before the collapse of enron. after an emergency board vote, lay asked fastow to leave enron immediately, but fastow hesitated. he wanted to discuss a severance package saying he wasn’t going to be greedy, but looking in the neighborhood of $5 million. lay’s response to that, “hell no, andy, pack up your stuff and leave the building.” lay maintained it was newspaper stories damaging investor confidence in enron and driving down the stock price at a time when the company was doing extremely well. this afternoon, lay’s attorney has been taking him through the indictments count by count to deny the government’s allegations. for example, the government accuses lay of misleading employees in an open email forum in september, but lay denied that, saying that at the time “i did believe the balance sheet was strong and the company was financially sound. i believed it then, and i believe it now.” this is continuing count by count as he takes each one and tries to prove the government’s allegations against him are false. cross examination is expected to begin tomorrow and legal experts say this is the most critical part of the case for lay as the jury judges his credibility and that the outcome of the case for lay depends on his credibility. back to you, mike.
>> june grasso in houston. the department of home depot security today started conducting background check it’s nation’s estimated 400,000 port workers. secretary michael chertoff says workers deemed a security risk will be denied access. the checks initially will only compare workers against terrorist watch lists and confirm immigration status. they may be expanded to include other government databases. port security in the spotlight since last month’s public outcry against d.p. world, dubai state-owned country buying terminal operations at six american ports. the house committee tomorrow is expected to pass legislation requiring the installation of radiation and nuclear detectors at all u.s. ports. similar legislation in the senate has attracted bipartisan support. complicationss for immigration legislation. a lot more going on in washington besides gasoline price wars. “political notes” are next.
