Come on Santa

Yesterday Nike’s earnings beat Wall Street’s expectations. This morning the third quarter revised GDP number is due out at 8:30am. Also this morning the Conference Board will release its report on leading indicators at 10:30. If these numbers come in at good levels, we can see a continuation of the Santa Claus rally that was underway for December. The Dow was well into record territory early yesterday before the record run was cut short yesterday. Good numbers can change all that and spur on further records well into the New Year.

Another Reason to Rally

CNN Money.com’s headline this morning is “A Merry Merger Monday.” It looks like Express Scripts, Harrods, and Realogy will all be merged or sold. Even overseas markets are getting into it as Citigroup won regulatory approval for it’s majority purchase of China’s Guangdong Development bank. Norway’s Norsk Hydro and Statoil have agreed to merge their oil and gas operations. Orthopedics maker Biomet appears to be the target of a couple of firms. And Finally Canada’s BCE has announced that it will sell Telesat. All this merger activity has led to a jump in the futures and a likelihood of a continuation of this rally further into record territory.

I’m hoping all the merger talk and activity gives boost to my stocks, especially WIRE which seems down and out at the moment. CLRK signed another licensing deal. This one with Chinese manufacturer Neo-Neon that should help fuel another rise. We need something that will take the stock above the $25.00 range.

Good News Friday

Well the stock market looks poised to take off into record territory as this mornings CPI report came in showing inflation unchanged. Nasdaq futures are currently up over 17 points, suggesting a large gap at the open should things remain unchanged. Economists had forecast a 0.2% rise in the inflation rate so this is truly good news. This news should offset the oil production cuts announced by OPEC yesterday and hopefully give a much needed boost to WIRE.

'Tis the Season

OPEC is at it again. They’re meeting in Nigeria to discuss more production cuts. It doesn’t seem to me that long ago when OPEC was talking about the ideal price of oil range as being between $28 and $35 per barrel. What happened you ask? When the price of oil rose above $60 and the global economy didn’t fall apart, OPEC realized that it could make a lot more money by keeping oil above $60. So now we are facing the possibility of production cuts and higher oil prices, which the market most certainly won’t like.

On the plus side, Wall Street is having a great year. The pick up in market activity along with all the mergers and acquisitions, has resulted in record profits on Wall Street. Bear Sterns for example, blew past their forecast $3.36 per share and hit an actual number of $4.00 per share. Well record profits lead to bonuses as Goldman Sachs announced it was setting aside $16.5 billion to cover salaries and bonuses for its employees with top bonuses exceeding $20-million. Not bad for shuffling some paper and greasing some palms. Where do I sign?

Looks Like We May Have A Merry Christmas

I don’t post for two days and the markets turn around? Maybe I should be a little more quiet?

Yesterday, as expected the Fed left rates alone yesterday and the market took that as a positive. Although, I would have liked to see a nice Christmas gift of a cut, I’ll take the unchanged. Better than an increase.

Also, this morning word of merger talks between Continental Airlines and United Airlines to create the worlds largest airline has markets in a positive mood. GE also announced it was increasing it’s dividend by 12%.

Adding fuel to the Christmas rally this morning was a much stronger than expected November retail sales report. Economists consensus forecast was for a 0.2 percent gain. So it looks like we have all the makings for a nice Christmas rally. Here’s hoping that WIRE takes off so I can sell it as I’ve got my eyes on another stock, but more about that later.

Fianlly a Good Friday

This morning the Labor Department released the jobs report. They said that the US economy created 132,000 jobs in November beating the consensus forecast 105,000 jobs. This was despite the rise in the unemployment rate to 4.5%. As expected the futures jumped on the news and it looks like we may be back on track for a Christmas rally despite the price of oil rising above $63.00.

On the plus side it looks like a lot of retailers are deeply discounting ahead of Christmas so maybe it looks like it’s a good idea to wait until the last minute this year.

Both my stocks were down with the general market yesterday.

Go Christmas rally.

Waiting for Friday

Today looks like the day when the markets could be lower as the futures are all slightly down this morning. Yahoo and Chrysler both announced restructuring plans and Novell came out with disappointing numbers. Usually in this scenario, when I say the markets will be lower something happens to drive the markets higher. Right now there are no major economic reports or numbers being released until Friday’s unemployment report. Right now the only good news out there for the markets are lower oil and lower gold prices.

Looking at the stock that I’m holding, some good news on the CLRK front. CLRK announced that is has settled its suit with Super Vision. Under the agreement, Super Vision will pay CLRK a fee to settle past claims and in return get a royalty license so it can continue to sell LED products. Good news on the CLRK front . Now all we need to do is get WIRE moving. Something I did look up was the number of shares short. There is 30% of the float that is shorted. So by my logic, if WIRE can put a rally together for a few days then there will be some short covering which will drive the price up and more short covering and so on and so on. Come on WIRE we need some upward movement.

Two Days in a Row....

The market today seems poised for another rally. I think Wall Street and the rest of us want to see a nice Christmas rally. A Christmas rally will be good for everyone. It will put more money in everyone’s pockets and give my retirement account a nice boost. The futures are all pointing up this morning but things could come to an end this morning at 10:00am when the government will report on October factory orders. The rally looks to be spurred on this morning from home builder Toll Brothers who this morning said that it appeared the housing slump in the US has bottomed out.

The big day will be this Friday when the government releases the unemployment report. Economists are expecting the unemployment rate to edge up to 4.5% from 4.4%. In this case a slight increase would be good for the markets because it will mean that the economy is not growing at a frantic pace. That kind of unemployment gets Wall Street worried that there will be wage inflation. After all if people are earning more then there’s talk about wage inflation. An we know what happens when that talk starts….

Welcome to December

Ok. Today I delayed writing this entry because this morning Wall Street looked like it didn’t know where is wanted to go. Pfizer had withdrawn a heart medicine it was working on and oil was up. There were a few negative factors in the air. I wanted to get an idea of what was going to happen before I shot my mouth off. Well now I see that the Dow is up over 100 points, Nasdaq is up 40 points, and CLRK is up 0.35 (WIRE is down 0.55). So what changed?

Well one of the things Wall Street picked up on merger news. Bank of New York is merging with Mellon Bank, LSI Logic is buying Agere Systems and Station Casinos has received a $4.7 billion bid from management to take the company private. Crude prices also slid today after the National Weather Service Forecast milder temperatures over the next couple of weeks. Also December, particularly the first week, is a traditionally strong month for stocks. All this good news for the markets led to today’s rally.

At home in Canada, the Liberal party did what I considered to be a disservice to their party by electing Stephane Dion as their leader. I think that an unknown francophone may not be the best person to represent the party and could end up failing to get the Liberals back in government. But at this point only time will tell and we should give the man a chance and see what he can do.

No Excitement Today

Markets are somewhat cautious today after a volatile week. I don’t think there are a lot of people that want to take big positions especially ahead of this mornings auto sales numbers and construction spending due out at 10am. Once those numbers come out I hope the market will then settle into a direction, but my feeling is that the markets will hold off until Monday.

Here in Canada, the Liberals paid tribute to there out going leader Paul Martin yesterday and will turn their attention to the process of picking a new leader today. Today’s agenda includes speeches from all the leadership candidates and a first ballot. After the first ballot is where things really start to get interesting.