BHP Files Motion to Dismiss Potash Suit In response to BHP Billiton’s unrelenting takeover bid, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. filed a complaint for injunctive and other relief last week in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. According to the legal brief, “Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (PCS) seeks to preliminarily and […]

Fed Funds Target Rate Unchanged The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee voted to keep the target interest rate at .25% on Wednesday, September 16th. The vote was nearly unanimous with only Thomas Hoenig dissenting. The press release, similar to other releases this year, presented the picture of a fragile economy with moderate growth prospects. The […]

US Economy Crude Oil This week crude oil data was released in the Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. For the week ending September 10th, crude oil refinery inputs rose 15 million barrels. Refineries were operating at 88% of capacity. For the same period, crude inventories decreased by 2.5 million […]

US Economic Data Initial and Continuing claims Initial claims came in better than expected for last week. The estimate was that 470 thousand jobs would be lost and instead only 451 thousand jobs were lost. Continuing Claims came in worse than expected. The expectation was of continuing insurance benefits for 4,450,000 unemployed Americans and instead […]

US Economic Data This week the market saw the release of numerous US economic indicators. On Tuesday, August 31st the consumer confidence level was released, at 53.5 versus the consensus median of 51.0. Some believe this increase in confidence is in line with Ben Bernanke’s view that he exuded in his speech last week; which […]

US Market Existing Home Sales This week the NAR (National Association of Realtors) released the July data for existing home sales – which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops. The number came out much lower than expected at 3.83 million units sold versus the estimated 4.65 million, and below the lower […]

US Economic Data Jobless Claims and Philadelphia Fed Index This week the US economy saw an unexpected large increase in unemployment claims (for the week ending August 14th) as reported by the US Department of Labor. Jobless claims rose to 500,000 which was 16,000 more than were lost last week, before any revisions. Economists were […]

US Market As of Thursday, August 5th, the US equity markets continued in their respective rallies behind mixed economic data and earnings. This week we saw the ISM manufacturing index (Institute for Supply Management, Purchasing Managers’ Index) drop to 55.5 from 56.2, however still higher than the expected level of 54.2. When the index is […]

Market Update Economic Data Initial claims came in as expected in the range between 440k and 470k. This number is better than the previous 468k.  Continuing claims however continued to trend upwards (4565k from 4487k).  Consumer confidence dropped lower than expected and new home sales came in better than expected. This week’s numbers are largely […]

U.S. Market News Ben Bernanke on the Economy Wednesday and Thursday the Chairman of the Federal Reserve gave the Senate and the House his semiannual monetary policy briefing. Although the briefing in the House and Senate were the same the questions differed slightly.  The main concern on most of the congressmen’s minds was the high […]