Rates Steady, Employment Concerns, Stocks Mixed

Stocks sold off on Fed employment concerns despite a stock friendly rate steady decision at the FOMC meeting. An early rally quickly ended, driving stocks mixed on the session. Fears of inflation and higher prices counteracted any bullish sentiment emanating from the rate announcement. Investors seem to be looking beyond simple interest rate manipulation when making longer term plans. The DJIA ended the day down -10.88 to 10441.12, the Nasdaq hung onto gains of +5.86 to 2206.91 and the broad based S&P 500 added +1.25 to 1109.18.

Playboy Enterprises
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: Uncle Hef was disappointed to learn that Iconix Brand is breaking off buyout talks sending shares lower by 9.90% or 38 cents to $3.46.

Intel
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: Led the DJIA lower by 2.12% or 42 cents to $19.38/share after being sued by the FTC for interfering with competition.

Citigroup
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: Suffered a drop of 3.09% or 11 cents to $3.45/share after Abu Dhabi Investment Group announced it was trying to cancel its purchase of $7.5 billion dollars of stock at 8 times today’s price.

Carnival Corp
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: The cruise line was upgraded to “buy” at Deutsche Bank and “overweight” at Morgan Stanley, ironically sending shares lower by 0.18% or 6 cents to $33.82. Shares are higher in after hour trading.

Gold is back on its winning ways gaining $13.00 to $1136.00, oil added $1.99 to $72.69 and VIX fear index fell hard 4.42% to 20.54.

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Market Snapshot

Dow

-10.88 10441.12

NASDAQ

+5.86 2206.91

S&P 500

+1.25 1109.18

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