Trading in Oil to Dominate

123jump.com Staff
22 Dec, 2005
New York City

A familiar pattern of trading may be repeated today on a day of light trading ahead of holidays. Earnings news from maker of BlackBerry, General Mills, ConAgra, A G Edwards and American Greetings to dominate news. ALbertson is reported to have broken-off the company sale talks. Oil is likely to trade higher at the opening.

On a day of light trading market is expected to open higher in New York and on Nasdaq. Broader averages are expected to reflect a buying sentiment that has been so familiar in the last five trading session. However market close may be another matter.

Crude oil is trading higher in Europe on the worries of lower than expected inventories of crude oil and distillate in the U.S. Oil is likely to trade close to $60 per barrel.

Shares of Albertson’s are trading lower in the electronic trading on the news reported by New York Times that the company has broken off talks with potential suitors. A group formed by CVS, hedge fund Cerberus capital management, Supervalu and Kimco Realty Trust had offered the company close to $9.5 billion.

Steady stream of earnings continue near the end of the year. Maker of Black Berry, Research in Motion reported 61 cents per share earning last evening. Earning for the quarter without one-time charge of 10 cents reflecting ongoing patent settlement talks were 71 cents per share.

The company added 645,000 subscribers in the third quarter, 25,000 lower than the company forecast. The company had 4.2 million Black Berry subscribers at the end of the quarter.

The company maintained its forecast of fourth quarter earning between 76 cents and 81 cents and lowered its subscriber addition target by 75,000 to 700,000 to 750,000.

General Mills Inc reported second quarter earnings of 97 cents compared to 92 cents a year ago. The second largest cereal and snack food producer reported a 3% rise in domestic sales and 8% rise in international sales.

American Greetings Corp reported third quarter earnings of 19 cents vs. 78 cents a year ago on revenue decline of 5%. The company recorded one-time charge of 42 cents as goodwill impairment charge in the quarter.