Greenspan Says No, Ike Spikes Gas, Markets Mixed

  • September 12, 2008
  • David Goodboy

The week ended in a volatile, chaotic session with the Hurricane Ike effect lifting gasoline prices while, ironically, oil dips below $100.00/barrel. Former Fed Chief, Alan Greenspan suggests no to a government takeover of Lehman Brothers citing extreme potential costs. The DJIA closed down -11.48 to 11422.23 after fighting back from steeper losses. The Nasdaq climbed +3.05 to 2261.27 and the S&P 500 closed in the positive by +2.68 at 1251.72.

Chipotle Grill
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CMG |
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PowerRating) fell 20.32% or $14.46 to $56.69 after announcing lagging third quarter results blamed on a slowing economy.

Foster Wheeler
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PowerRating) climbed 10.50% or $4.02 to $42.32/share after the oil refinery designer stated its intention to buy back $750 million of its shares. Jim Cramer applauds this effort as an attack on “crazy hedge funds.”

Merrill Lynch
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MER |
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PowerRating) gave back 12.61% or $2.45 to $16.98/share on rumors that it might be the next to fall.

American International Group
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PowerRating) also succumbed to failure rumors slipping 30.48% or $5.35 to $12.20/share.

Oil fell .12 cents to $100.75, gold jumped $22.30 to $767.80 and the short term VIX index spiked 13.85% to 30.01.

Market Snapshot

Dow

 -11.48 11422.23

NASDAQ

 +3.05 2261.27

S&P 500

 +2.68 1251.72

Economic
News

Consumer Credit (Q2): Consensus $8.5B, Prior $11.0B

Pending Home Sales (Q2): Consensus -1.4%, Prior 5.3%

Wholesale Inventories (Jul): Consensus 0.7%, Prior 1.1%

Crude Inventories (09/06): Consensus NA, Prior -1898K

Export Prices ex-oil (Aug): Consensus NA, Prior 0.8%

Import Prices ex-oil (Aug): Consensus NA, Prior 0.9%

Initial Claims (09/06): Consensus 440K, Prior 444K

Trade Balance (Jul): Consensus -$58.0B, Prior -$56.8B

Treasury Budget (Aug): Consensus -$105.0B, Prior -$117.0B

Core PPI (Aug): Consensus 0.2%, Prior 0.7%

PPI (Aug): Consensus -0.5%, Prior -1.2%

Retail Sales (Aug): Consensus 0.3%, Prior -0.1%

Retail Sales ex-auto (Aug): Consensus -0.2%, Prior 0.4%

Business Inventories (Jul): Consensus 0.5%, Prior 0.7%

Mich Sentiment-Prel (Sep): Consensus 64.0, Prior 63.0

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