Pessimistic Fed, Consumer Prices Collapse, Oil Drops

  • November 19, 2008
  • David Goodboy

Negative news struck the stock market today with the Federal Reserve’s FOMC minutes revealing drastically lowered economic forecasts. This surprisingly pessimistic outlook combined with the lowest consumer prices in 61 years and less than ideal results for the automakers seeking a bailout pushed the DJIA down -427.47 to 7997.28. The Nasdaq fell -96.85 to 1386.42 and the S&P 500 hit a 5 year low falling -52.54 to 806.58

Baidu.com
(
BIDU |
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PowerRating) – The Chinese leading internet search engine fell 13.22% or $17.02 to $111.74/share upon being downgraded to sell by Citigroup.

Best Buy
(
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PowerRating) – Dropped 11.40% or $2.39 to $18.58/share after Standard and Poors cut its debt rating to “BBB-“.

La-Z-Boy
(
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PowerRating) – Collapsed 36.16% or $1.79 to $3.16/share after cutting the quarterly dividend, slashing the workforce and withdrawing its latest full year earning estimates.

Veeco Instruments
(
VECO |
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PowerRating) – Added 2.87% or 0.11 cents to $3.94/share after Janney Montgomery Scott raised its outlook to neutral from sell.

Oil fell $0.17 to $53.11, gold climbed $3.30 to $736.00 and the fear index added 9.79% to 74.26.

Market Snapshot

Dow

 -427.47 7997.28

NASDAQ

 -96.85 1386.42

S&P 500

 -52.54 806.58

Economic
News

NY Empire State Index (Nov): Consensus -26.0, Prior -24.6

Capacity Utilization (Oct): Consensus 76.5%, Prior 76.4%

Industrial Production (Oct): Consensus 0.2%, Prior -2.8%

Core PPI (Oct): Consensus 0.1%, Prior 0.4%

PPI (Oct): Consensus -1.8%, Prior -0.4%

Net Foreign Purchases (Sep): Consensus $17.5B, Prior $14.0B

Building Permits (Oct): Consensus 772K, Prior 786K

Core CPI (Oct): Consensus 0.1%, Prior 0.1%

CPI (Oct): Consensus -0.8%, Prior 0.0%

Housing Starts (Oct): Consensus 780K, Prior 817K

FOMC Minutes (Oct 29): Consensus N/A, Prior N/A

Initial Claims (Nov 15): Consensus 503K, Prior 516K

Leading Indicators (Oct): Consensus -0.6%, Prior 0.3%

Philadelphia Fed (Nov): Consensus -35.0, Prior -37.5

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