Stocks Fall On Higher Oil, Fed Caution

Stocks fell Monday ahead of
tomorrow’s Fed meeting, and oil rose to over $67 as Hurricane Rita heads toward
the Gulf.
Natural gas surged to record
highs.

Traders are waiting to see what the Fed will do on Tuesday. Futures are pricing
in a 90% chance of a quarter point increase–the 11th in the cycle. Many expect
a change in the policy statement, emphasizing a murkier outlook for the economy.

OPEC is expected to announce a 2 million
bpd output increase tomorrow.

ExxonMobil
(
XOM |
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gained over 1% but
auto stocks fell. General Motors
(
GM |
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was off over 3%.

Nike
(
NKE |
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beat by 0.19%. Profits rose
32%



Strong Sectors
were:  Oil
Services
 
(
OSX |
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+3.20%    
Natural
Gas
 
(
XNGI |
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+2.59%
     
Oil

(
OIX |
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+2.30%



Weak sectors
were:
 
Airlines

(
XAL |
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+3.36%     Retail 
(
RLX |
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-1.54%    Semis
(
SOX |
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+1.39%


Dow

-85.18
10,556.76


Nasdaq

-15.09 2145.26


S&P 500

-6.91
1231.00

Stocks in the news:

EBay
(
EBAY |
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was cut to peer perform at
Bear Stearns.

Overstock.com
(
OSTK |
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PowerRating)
said it was
prevented from loading new products onto its website for five weeks due to an IT
upgrade.

Dominion Resources
(
D |
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PowerRating)
was upgraded to
Buy at Citigroup.

Brice Wightman