Wall Street Indexes Near Multi-Year Highs, Euro Advances

Bikram Pandey
21 Aug, 2012
New York City

The U.S. indexes hovered near multi-year highs. IBM, Wal-Mart, Verizon, Disney and Oracle are few large companies trading near their 5-year highs. Gold, copper and oil gained. European markets trade higher on the ECB optimism.

[R]4:00 PM New York – The U.S. indexes hovered near multi-year highs. IBM, Wal-Mart, Verizon, Disney and Oracle are few large companies trading near their 5-year highs. Gold, copper and oil gained. European markets trade higher on the ECB optimism.[/R]

U.S. indexes reversed their course in early afternoon and declined from the high of 0.8% after one hour of trading.

Market indexes are trading at multi-year highs and several large companies are at or near 5-year highs.

Stocks of Verizon ((VZ)), Walt Disney ((DIS)), Wal-Mart ((WMT)) and IBM ((IBM)) are at or near 5-year highs. Apple Inc ((APPL)) declined after trading at a record high and reached largest market cap of any publicly traded companies in nominal terms, surpassing the previous company value record held by Microsoft ((MSFT)).

Among other corporate news, Best Buy plunged on weak results and Church & Dwight agreed to acquire Avid Health for $650 million.

Best Buy appointed the new chief and reduced fiscal earnings outlook. The discount shoe retailer DSW soared after it reiterated guidance. Medical devices maker, Medtronic said first quarter revenue increased and tech products distributor, Tech Data declined as second quarter sales dropped in the US and Europe.

Switzerland based commodities trading giant, Glencore said earnings declined on lower commodity prices and also hinted that it is prepared to walk away from its proposed merger with Xstrata if Qatar based funds holds its demand for a higher price.

Glencore said first half dropped 26% to $1.8 billion and overall operating profit at the marketing segment decreased 11%.

The European indexes closed higher on the optimism that the European Central Bank will follow through its announcement to defend the euro “at any cost” and resume buying sovereign bonds in the region. In addition, Spain sold €4.5 billion of short-term debt at lower yields.

In economic news, German leading economic index decreased in June and the UK public sector net borrowing increased in July.

Stocks in Tokyo edged lower in weak trading as investors remained focused on defensive stocks linked to domestic economy. In thin trading, the Nikkei declined and investors awaited concrete announcements from the central banks in Europe.

Australian stocks traded higher after the latest batch of earnings confirmed the current boom in mining industry capital spending. Monadelphous reported annual net increased 44% and steelmaker Arrium said net dropped 75%. Amcor, the packaging company said full-year net rose 18%.

Commodities, Bonds and Currencies

The yield on 10-year bond traded higher to 1.83% and on 30-year bond edged up to 2.94%.

The U.S. dollar inched lower to $1.247 to a euro and increased against the Japanese yen to 79.30 yen.

Immediate delivery futures of Texas crude oil increased 8 cents to $96.77 a barrel and Brent crude added 92 cents to $114.62, futures of natural gas rose 3 cents to $2.80 per mbtu and gasoline price edged up 3.04 cents to 306.12 cents a gallon.

In metals trading, copper increased 7.5 cents to $3.45 per pound, gold added $18.50 to $1,641.50 per ounce and silver increased 84 cent to $29.53.