{"id":339837,"date":"2010-02-19T09:20:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T14:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"e2249889-c78b-43e3-9643-b1d7d4aa587b:398000"},"modified":"2010-02-19T09:20:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-19T14:20:00","slug":"discount-rate-cpi-equity-volumes-dell-oil-services-%e2%80%93-vialoux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/339837","title":{"rendered":"Discount rate, CPI, equity volumes, Dell, oil services \u2013 Vialoux"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. equity index futures are lower this morning. S&P 500 futures eased 4 points in pre-opening trade. Index futures are responding to news that the Federal Reserve increased its Discount Rate from 0.50% to 0.75%. <\/p>\n

Index futures recovered part of their loss following release of the January Consumer Price Index at 8:30 AM EST. Consensus was an increase of 0.3% versus 0.1% in December. Actual was an increase of 0.2%. Consensus for core CPI (excluding energy and food) was a gain of 0.2% versus a gain of 0.1% in December. Actual was a decline of 0.1%. On a year-over-year basis, CPI rose to 2.6% and core CPI increased 1.8%. <\/p>\n

Volume in North American equity markets could increase to above average levels today.  Volume is related to the expiration of February equity options, index options and index futures options. Today is the last trade date for most February listed options.<\/p>\n

Dell eased 5% after releasing higher than expected fourth quarter earnings. However, the company lowered guidance for 2010. <\/p>\n

Disney was initiated at a Buy recommendation by Jefferies. Target is $36.<\/p>\n

Penn West Energy Trust was upgraded from Hold to Buy at Canaccord. Penn West has an improving technical profile. Units recently broke to a 14 month high. \u2018Tis the season for Canadian energy equities and trusts to move higher!<\/p>\n

Canaccord also upgraded Golden Star Resources from Hold to Buy with a target price of $4.00.  <\/p>\n

More encouraging news for Oil Services HOLDRs (NYSE:OIH) – $122.81<\/p>\n

Oil Services HOLDRs (OIH) are in the news again this morning:
Schlumberger is reported to be in advanced talks to purchase Smith International, another major company in the international oil service industry. Value of the deal is expected to exceed $8 billion. Schlumberger is down 3% and Smith International is up 17% in pre-opening trade. Takeover rumors likely will add value to other stocks in the sector.
Morgan Stanley upgraded several oil services stocks this morning. TransOcean was upgraded from Under Perform to Over Perform. Target price was raised from $130 to $140. Ensco also was upgraded from Under Perform to Out Perform. Target price was raised from $65 to $72.
The oil services sector currently is in a period of seasonal strength lasting until mid May.
Oil Services HOLDRS has an improving technical profile. Intermediate trend remains up. Units recently moved above their 50 day moving average. A MACD buy signal was recorded on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Don Vialoux, chartered market technician, is the author of a free
\ndaily report on equity markets, sectors, commodities, equities and
\nExchange-Traded Funds. For more visit Don Vialoux's Web site<\/a><\/i> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. equity index futures are lower this morning. S&P 500 futures eased 4 points in pre-opening trade. Index futures are responding to news that the Federal Reserve increased its Discount Rate from 0.50% to 0.75%. Index futures recovered part of their loss following release of the January Consumer Price Index at 8:30 AM EST. Consensus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4059,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4059"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}