Daily Market Reports | May 20 2011
By Greg Peel
The Dow closed up 45 points or 0.4% while the S&P gained 0.2% to 1343 and the Nasdaq added 0.3%.
Wall Street was abuzz last night with the initial listing of social networking site LinkedIn, which is sort of a Facebook for grown-ups. The stock had been trading on an off-market exchange last week at US$35, listed at US$45 following its IPO, and traded as high as US$122 before settling back to US$93 on last night's close. Tonight we're gonna party like its 1999.
Such frivolity has immediately led to talk of a new dotcom bubble, with social networking sites the flavour du jour compared to last century when anything listed on the interweb was considered money for jam. Facebook itself is expected to list soon. LinkedIn doesn't make any money of course, despite its now US$7bn valuation, and no one's quite sure just how it will. But they said that about Google when it listed for US$100 in 2004, post tech wreck, and its shares now trade at over US$500.
It was lucky LinkedIn was the distraction last night, given a raft of surprisingly weak US data.
On Monday night it was revealed the New York state manufacturing index had fallen sharply when a rise was expected, and last night it was the turn of the more closely watched Philadelphia index. It fell to 3.9 from 18.5 in April – barely expanding – when economists expected 20.1.
The Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators for April fell by 0.3%. That's the first fall since June last year.
Economists had expected sales of existing homes to rise in April, but they fell 0.8%.
Yesterday Japan released its first quarter GDP, upon which the tsunami impacted right at the tail end. It fell 0.9% quarter-on-quarter to be down 3.7% annualised. Economists had expected a 0.5% qoq fall.
Wall Street was subsequently up and down all day, before finishing up. I suggested yesterday that given the timing of the close of commodity markets, the release of the Fed minutes and the knee-jerk volatility in the US dollar index which followed, we'd have to let the dust settle and allow for more extended interpretation before getting carried away. The ASX 200 was nevertheless up 60 points yesterday, as well it might on a perceived Goldilocks session..
Last night the US dollar index fell back 0.4% to 75.11 following the realisation that the Fed was not about to raise any time soon. The Aussie was thus up 0.3% to US$1.0668. Commodity prices had surged as the US dollar fell initially on Wednesday and then closed before the Fed release, so it is of little surprise, despite the weaker greenback, that last night tin fell 1%, aluminium, copper and zinc fell 2% and nickel fell 4%. West Texas oil was down US$1.65 to US$98.43/bbl, Brent fell US88c to US$111.42/bbl, and gold fell US$2.60 to US$1493.90/oz.
The SPI Overnight fell 14 points or 0.3%.
US economic pain did not stop after the bell. The major retailers have been reporting earnings this week and while there have been a couple of positives, there have been many negatives. Last night clothing store Gap reported after the bell and severely slashed guidance, citing surging input prices, particularly cotton, and the inability to pass cost increases into price increases. Gap shares are down 15% in the after-market.
Perhaps it would be a better idea to sell virtual undies.
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