Comments »Analysts have long warned that the $1.32 area was the only thing standing between the euro and chartist Armageddon. Well, don’t look now…
In the event of a convincing break of the euro below that technical support, Bank of America and Scotia Capital are targeting a re-test of the common currency’s Oct. 4 low at $1.3145, with Scotia’s analysts saying a test of 1.30 is all but a near-term certainty.
Credit Suisse is even more bearish: The bank’s analysts wrote this morning that they expect the euro to hit $1.25 by early next year.
The euro today off about 1.5% to trade recently near $1.3196 after hitting intraday low — and the lowest point since early October — of $1.3178.
A euro break of $1.3145 would take common currency back to levels not seen since January.
Yearly Archives: 2011
OWS to try and block port activity later today
Comments »As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to evolve, protestors have employed a myriad of ways to get their populist message across. There were the various occupations of public spaces, starting with Zuccotti Park; there was also Occupy Friday, a boycott of big retailers like Target (TGT), Sears (SHLD) and Macy’s (M) on Black Friday and a similar Occupy Christmas planned for later this month.
The latest method of protest that Occupy Wall Street activists have come up with is a plan West Coast port blockade. On Monday, protestors on the West Coast are planning to shut down all ports along the West Coast in an effort to disrupt the businesses of the big companies like EGT (of which Bunge Ltd (BG) is the largest partner), Goldman Sachs (GS), Walmart (WMT) and Maersk that do business at the ports. Blockades are planned in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland and Anchorage, among others.
According to the movement’s website, one key reason, besides the movement’s central message of fighting corporate power, behind this planned blockage, was to demonstrate solidarity with the workers at the port.
Hypermarcas to sell brands to BG, Quimica Amparo Ltd.
Comments »Hypermarcas SA, the maker of more than 190 consumer products, agreed to sell some brands to Bunge Ltd. (BG) and Quimica Amparo Ltda. for as much as 305 million reais ($169.6 million).
The Salsaretti, Puropure and Etti food brand were sold to U.S.-based Bunge for 180 million reais, the Sao Paulo-based company said today in a statement to Brazil’s securities regulator.
In a separate statement, Hypermarcas said it sold its Perfex, Cross Hatch and the Assolan cleaning brand to Quimica Amparo for as much as 125 million reais.
The deal with Bunge is expected to close by Dec. 30.
Argentina poised to become major oil/gas player?
Comments »Argentina could be nearing a shale oil and gas boom similar to the one that transformed the US energy landscape as former state monopoly YPF eyes another 1bn barrel discovery adjacent to a Patagonian field whose reserves were more than six times bigger than thought.
YPF has almost finished drilling a 502 sq km area just north of the discovery zone and believes full results will be equally vast. Two of the three wells are in production and “the yield is exactly the same,” says Tomás García Blanco, YPF’s executive director for upstream.
Asked if this heralded another 1bn barrel discovery, Mr García Blanco says: “Yes. But until the third well is drilled … I would like to be cautious. We hope to know by the end of the year or January 2012.”
The group, which is 57.43 per cent owned by Spain’s Repsol, announced in November that it had discovered 927m barrels of oil equivalent in a 428 sq km zone of the Vaca Muerta (“Dead Cow”) formation in south-western Argentina – more than six times higher than its initial estimate in May of 150m barrels. The discovery is three-quarters oil and one-quarter gas, it says.
That, Mr García Blanco notes, is based on “conservative” estimates that only 4 per cent of all the hydrocarbons will be extracted. Some in the US believe recovery rates of 8 per cent or even 15 per cent may be possible in time – something that will lead to eye-popping estimates of the potential for shale worldwide.
Argentina has some of the world’s biggest and best-quality reserves of shale hydrocarbons, which are trapped thousands of metres underground and released by fracturing rocks using high-pressured water, sand and chemicals. The US Energy Information Administration this year ranked Argentina third globally in terms of technically recoverable shale gas resources with 774,000bn cubic feet.
Uncle Sam and Investors Continue to Benefit From the EU Crisis
AT&T Receives a Stay to Put Off Trial in Their Bid for T-Mobile
Companies and Business Owners Scramble to Rearrange Liquidity Accessibility
How One May Benefit From the EU Crisis
Today’s Most Active Options Trades
-CALLS- OPTION EXP.DATE STRIKE PRC. VOLUME LAST S/PRC. NET CHANGE HL 1/21/12 6.0000 3131 0.6400 dn 0.1400 YHOO 12/17/11 15.0000 766 0.6100 dn 0.4200 MS 4/21/12 20.0000 700 0.9500 dn 0.2600 GE 12/17/11 17.0000 675 0.1000 dn 0.1100 BAC 12/17/11 6.0000 547 0.0300 dn 0.0600 GLD 1/21/12 170.0000 544 1.6800 dn 1.5700 BAC 1/21/12 6.0000 470 0.2700 dn 0.1200 DIA 12/17/11 122.0000 416 0.4500 dn 0.9300 BAC 12/17/11 5.0000 402 0.4800 dn 0.2700 C 1/21/12 30.0000 396 1.0000 dn 0.8100 -PUTS- OPTION EXP.DATE STRIKE PRC. VOLUME LAST S/PRC. NET CHANGE GLD 12/17/11 165.0000 618 4.3000 up 2.8800 GLD 12/17/11 167.0000 555 5.4200 up 3.0900 BAC 12/17/11 5.0000 544 0.0500 up 0.0200 OXY 1/21/12 40.0000 500 0.0400 dn 0.0100 MO 12/17/11 28.0000 411 0.0500 dn 0.0200 AMR 1/21/12 0.5000 404 0.1500 dn 0.0400 MS 12/17/11 15.0000 403 0.4300 up 0.2300 WFC 1/21/12 27.0000 400 1.7700 up 0.3300 GLD 12/17/11 120.0000 396 0.0100 up 0.0000 C 12/17/11 27.0000 364 0.8000 up 0.4200 -VOLUME- CALLS PUTS TOTAL 68974 83108 152082
-CALLS- OPTION EXP.DATE STRIKE PRC. VOLUME LAST S/PRC. NET CHANGE UTHR 1/21/12 60.0000 22332 0.0100 dn 0.0900 CSCO 2/18/12 19.0000 14283 0.7900 dn 0.2600 CSCO 2/18/12 18.0000 14019 1.3800 dn 0.2600 C 12/17/11 30.0000 13888 0.1200 dn 0.4200 RIMM 2/18/12 19.0000 10200 0.9800 dn 0.1000 HL 1/21/12 6.0000 9231 0.6500 dn 0.1400 BAC 1/18/14 12.0000 8779 0.4900 dn 0.1100 BAC 1/18/14 7.0000 8134 1.5100 dn 0.1700 BMO 3/17/12 65.0000 6265 0.2500 up 0.0000 INTC 1/21/12 19.0000 5543 4.9000 dn 1.1500 -PUTS- OPTION EXP.DATE STRIKE PRC. VOLUME LAST S/PRC. NET CHANGE UTHR 1/21/12 60.0000 17052 18.4000 up 0.3000 SQNM 1/21/12 5.0000 10185 1.2400 up 0.0100 GLW 12/17/11 13.0000 6905 0.1200 up 0.0600 BAC 12/17/11 6.0000 4079 0.5800 up 0.2200 INTC 12/17/11 24.0000 3947 0.3900 up 0.2800 BAC 1/21/12 6.0000 3656 0.8400 up 0.1900 KMI 6/16/12 30.0000 3482 4.5000 dn 0.3000 AA 1/21/12 10.0000 3082 1.0300 up 0.1900 AA 4/21/12 8.0000 3020 0.5700 up 0.0800 NOV 5/19/12 47.5000 2429 1.9400 up 0.2200 -VOLUME- CALLS PUTS TOTAL 1199770 1150321 2350091Comments »
Lunch Break: Are Free Lunches Hurting America ?
Are the wrong people being rewarded while the government spends inappropriately ?
Comments »Martin Marietta Pursues a Hostile Bid of Vulcan Materials
Obama in Regards to a Lack of Criminal Cases on Wall St: :They didn’t do anything illegal”
Coordinating incentives to push high risk mortgages, packaging loans to hide the nature of toxic risk, rating the SIVs, pushing the SIVS on mom, pop, pensions, and then betting against the SIVs with CDS was not illegal ?
Perhaps individually this may be the case, but there had to be coordination, collusion, agreement, etc which allowed this to occur for so many years.
By having FRE and FNM take on the paper it actually enabled Wall St to continually play the game.
Oh and let’s not forget the banks payed more money for favorable ratings on their toxic asset vehicles.
Furthermore, all the whistle blowers were fired, black listed, excommunicated, and ignored.
The RICO ACT explains the crime committed & Danny Schechter does a good job of showing how it was pulled off.
Comments »Pfizer Announces a $10 Billion Buy Back Program
Flash: Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case About Arizona Immigration Law
TheSupreme Court said on Monday that it would decide whether Arizona’s tough law cracking down on illegal immigrants can take effect, a case arising from the fierce national debate on immigration policy ahead of next year’s presidential election.
The high court agreed to review a ruling that put on hold the key parts of the law signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer in April 2010. The case has been closely watched because several other states have adopted similar laws.
The law requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they detained and suspected of being in the nation illegally. Other parts require immigrants to carry their papers at all times and ban people without proper documents from soliciting for work in public places.
The justices are likely to hear arguments in the case in April, with a ruling due by July. It could produce another contentious election-year ruling for the court, which also will decide President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul law.
About 11 million illegal immigrants are believed to be in the United States. Immigration has become a major political issue, especially in states such as Arizona that border Mexico, ahead of the presidential and other elections in November 2012.
Obama and other opponents, including many Democrats and civil rights groups, have criticized the law and said it could lead to harassment of Hispanic-Americans.
The Obama administration challenged the law on the grounds the federal government has exclusive control over immigration enforcement. A federal judge and an appeals courts agreed, putting on hold the disputed provisions.
The law’s supporters, including many Republicans, said states need to take aggressive action because the federal government has failed to do enough to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the country.
Comments »OPEC to meet, hash out production quota
Comments »VIENNA (Reuters) – OPEC began negotiations on Monday on a new production deal aimed at healing the rift caused by a bad-tempered failure to agree an output target when it last met in June.
At stake for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at its Wednesday meeting is a credible output policy heading into a year when sluggish global economy could undermine fuel demand and bring down oil prices that now are over $107 a barrel.
“I think they have to agree this time because they need to be credible,” said former Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelil ahead of the meeting of the 12-member cartel that pumps more than half the world’s oil exports.
Without a collective supply target, OPEC members with spare capacity – Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies – will remain free to pump at will.
Leading producer Saudi Arabia made clear its intention to keep oil prices under control, saying last week it was producing a surprisingly high 10 million barrels daily of crude, much more than estimated by most in the oil industry.
That pleased consumer nations worried about the impact of oil prices on global growth.
“OECD stock levels are at historically low levels, plus we are in very fragile economic recovery situation,” said Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency.
But the Saudi position is worrying for the price hawks in OPEC like Iran, Algeria and Venezuela who want to keep oil above $100.
Iran wants a commitment from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf OPEC producers that they cut back to accommodate the restoration of Libyan supply.
“Should OPEC’s present output continue, with the increased production of Libya and Iraq next year we would witness an increase in stockpiling and a drop in crude oil prices,” said Iran’s OPEC representative Mohammad Ali Khatibi.
Today’s Heat Map and A/D Line
Gold Continues to Get Smashed; Now Down 3%+ @ $1,664
ECB Slows Bond Purchases Dramatically Last Week
The ECB bought EUR635 million in government bonds on the secondary market last week, the smallest amount since it re-launched the purchases in August and also down from EUR3.662 billion the previous week, ECB data released Monday show.
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