Big Oil Deal, Obama Urges Banks On Lending, Food Fight

• December 14, 2009
• David Goodboy

A big oil deal consisting of Exxon Mobil buying out XTO Energy led the pack during this exciting financial news day. More stories followed including Obama shoving banks with a heavy hand and Kraft Food’s hostile takeover offer meeting with aggressive resistance from Cadbury. Cadbury firmly believes Kraft is trying to steal their company. Despite the volatile news flow, markets traded in a tight range ending the session in positive territory. The DJIA added +29.55 to 10501.05, the Nasdaq pushed higher by +21.79 to 2212.10 and the broad based S&P 500 increased by +7.70 to 1114.11.

Citigroup
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PowerRating): Fell 6.33% or 25 cents to $3.70/share after advising it will pay back its TARP funds by selling $20.5 billion of equities and debt.

Amazon
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PowerRating): Shares dropped 2.06% or $2.77 to $131.38 after the internet retailer may fall if it can’t keep up with forecast sales per Barron’s.

Visa
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PowerRating): Gained 4.22% or $3.43 to $84.77/share on news that it will join the S&P 500 on December 18th and an analyst’s upgrade.

Phillip Morris
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PowerRating): Added to the Goldman Sachs’ “conviction buy” list, which sent shares higher by 3.67% or $1.78 to $50.26.

Oil fell by 20 cents to $69.71, gold gained $3.90 to $1124.00 and the VIX index gave back another 2.04% to 21.15.

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Market Snapshot

Dow +29.55 10,501.05 NASDAQ +21.79 2,212.10 S&P 500 +7.70 1,114.11

Economic News

Core PPI (Nov): Consensus: 0.2%, Prior: -0.6% PPI (Nov): Consensus: 0.8%, Prior: 0.3% Empire Manufacturing (Dec): Consensus: 24.00, Prior: 23.51 Net Long-Term TIC Flows (Oct): Consensus: $42.3B, Prior: $40.7B Capacity Utlization (Nov): Consensus: 71.1%, Prior: 70.7% Industrial Production (Nov): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: 0.1% Building Permits (Nov): Consensus: 570K, Prior: 552K Housing Starts (Nov): Consensus: 578K, Prior: 529K CPI (Nov): Consensus: 0.4, Prior: 0.2% Core CPI (Nov): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.3% Crude Inventories (12/11): Consensus: NA, Prior: -3.82M FOMC Rate Decision (12/16): Consensus: 0.25%, Prior: 0.25% Initial Claims (12/12): Consensus: 465K, Prior: 474K Continuing Claims (12/5): Consensus: 5170K, Prior: 5157K Leading Indicators (Nov): Consensus: 0.7%, Prior: 0.3% Philadelphia Fed (Dec): Consensus: 16.0, Prior: 16.7