Market briefing --- Mike (fast)
NYSE --- Julie (slow)
Nasdaq --- June (slow)
Reporting earnings --- Su (fast)
>> crude oil futures rose to a record in new york after a report showing the chinese economy grew 9.1% in the third quarter. here’s where we finish for the week. crude oil for december delivery, $55.17 a barrel. that is a 70-cent gain. among the other energy movers, all up, gasoline, heating oil, and natural gas futures. our other big story, marsh & mclennan, you should fire. now there’s speculation jeffrey greenberg will be stepping down. alan dodds frank has been following the story from the beginning. he joins us now.
>> los of twists and turns, mike. a report that jeffrey greenberg will be replaced is eroundous. crole is the founder of the risk management group acquired in july by $1.9 billion. he’s a 63-year-old former officer reabilitying to a report saying greenberg is out and he is in.
>> trikowsky once supervised elliott spitzer when they were both young prosecutors working for the manhattan district attorney. he took over at marsh a day after the independent directors of mar b & mclennan issued a statement declaring they had full confidence in the company’s leadership. since elliott spitzer sued marsh and mclennan days ago, those directors have been feeling increasing pressure about keeping jeffrey greenberg in charge of 60,000 employees with operations in more than 100 companies.spitzer challenged the board to act nine days ago.
>> i can tell the board very simply, very directly, the leadership of that company is a leadership i will talk to, not a leadership i will negotiate with.
>> he made it clear to reporters he was referring to greenberg’s four-year tenure, running a company that in his mind already has two strikes against it. spitzer cited the muche kuhle fund scandal and the leading role plaid by putnam. the attorney general also said mercer consulting, another unit of marsh and mclennan, played a role in misleading the new york stock exchange board about former c.e.o.’s richard grasso’s pay. checking the stock, you can see it’s up nearly $2, almost 8%. now there’s a new development. the new york state insurance department has issued citations to marsh & mclennan and a dozen of its subsidiaries to appear before the agency on november 23. that department has the authority to levy monetary penalties. we’ll continue to follow this story as it develops. mike?
>> all right. allan dods frank. overall, the major indecks were down on those oil price concerns. in fact, the dow jones industrials closing at their lowest of the year. the dow down more than 107 points, to 97.57.8. s&p 500 down on the day by about 11. the nasdaq, 38 points lower. the benchmark 10-year treasury note posted its gain. checking bond prices for the day now, after we have closed in new york, the 10-year note is up about 1/8. its yield down two basis points to 3.97%. the five-year note up 1/8. its yield, 3.25%. and on shortest end of the curve, the two-year note, just a tick higher. its field, 2.52%. the dollar finishing lower against its major trading partners. it was a broad-based decline in stocks. for more on today’s trading action, here’s julie hyman.
>> the dow closed at its lowest since last november. it last reached this low back in mid august. once again, the s&p 500 also declining today, but not getting close to that low it has reached for the year. and really two themes in today’s market pushing us lower. the price of oil as well as disappointing earnings. let’s talk about oil first, because oil once again climbing, we had a note today from joseph quilnin over at bank of america, he says people are still underestimating the effect oil could have on company’s bottom lines and the economy. higher energy costs are sapping the strength of the world economy, creating uncertainty in the minds of c.e.o.’s, undermining global earnings and impairing the trade balance of the united states. so the effect of this high oil price, we really saw it on a number of industries today. the declines were broad-based. we saw them being led by technology groups in particular. semiconductors decliping. software stocks, technology hardware, as well as pharmaceutical stocks. into tech index, by the way, the s&p 500 index, 70 of the 80 members in that index declining today. and that was in part attributed to microsoft after that company says sales forecasts came up short of analyst estimates. also, we were lower for the week for both the s&p 500 and the dow. the s&p 500 lower by 1.1%. the dow falling for the third week in a row by 1.8%. and in terms of groups -- actually the best performer for the week was semiconductors before today’s sessions, insurers and telecom were the worst performers.
>> it was the largest slide in the nasdaq in two months. june grasso has more on that in times square.
>> disaponting sales forecast for microsoft and broadcom led the nasdaq lower. microsoft, the world’s largest software maker down after saying revenue this quarter may riseless than 2%. customers are delaying purchases. broadcom, the leading decliner by percentage today on the nasdaq 100, the maker of chips used in cable modems and other consumer electronics expects fourth quarter sales of as much as $540 million, missing analysts estimates of nearly $655 million. broadcom blaming their customers’ excessive inventories, echoing what we’ve heard from many companies and analysts. broadcom downgraded at raymond james and downgraded to equal rate at specific growth equities. broadcom, the biggest drag on the philadelphia semiconductor index. also leading the index lower, xilinx, which said third quarter sales will shrink 2% to 6% for the second quarter. and maxim. now, the bright spot in the earnings picture was google, the world’s most used search engine. its shares surged after third quarter profit and sales more than doubled. the company said the mash for web advertising shows no signs of slowing down. its shares have more than doubled since the initial public offering. very early today, it was leading a rally in internet stocks but that dispated by this afternoon. take a look at some of the internet stocks, which were all down. yahoo, ask jeeves, amazon.com, earthlink and even ebay, the largest on-line auctioneer. i’m june grasso, bloomberg news from the nasdaq market site in times square.
>> stocks are down even though most companys in the s&p 500 are reporting profits up from last year. this week just over half the s&p 500 reporting earnings, su keenan is here to take a look at where the strengths and weaknesses are.
>> might, by and large, earnings are coming in better than ever. that is is the view of jason with the i.s.i. group. let’s take a look at what his pro-jecks are. 62% of companies have exceeded forecasts. that made for a strong quarter. on average, 59% of companies exceed analyst expectations each quarter. and trennert says energy companies have yet to report. this should help boost year over year earnings to growth at 15%. that’s a slowdown from last year, but still quite good. in terms of strongest and weakest performing industry groups, standard abd poor’s market analyst howard silverglad says the financial group is the only group to report an earnings decline so far. he says technology is the strongest group. 46 of 49 companies coming out with positive earnings. that said, technology shares are falling today. lincoln anderson, the chief investment officer of l.p.l. financial says microsoft’s disappointing outlook and concern about oil prices are causing investors to lose sight of the big picture. overall, ander son and others are bullish based on earnings alone.
>> su keenan. stay with us on the orlando financial report. oil prices are setting new records almost every day. when we come back, we’ll hear the outlook from boon pickens.
