Persimmon slipped after UBS lowered its rating on the stock from “buy” to “neutral”, citing tougher credit conditions. The brokerage also cut the price target of the stock by 44% to 779 pence and reduced the target of Baratt Developments Plc by 47% to 562 pence.
Prospects for the retail industry are projected to improve in the second half.
Ford Motor Company Executive Vice President Lewis Booth said today Ford had chosen Tata Motors Limited as the preferred bidder for Jaguar and Land Rover, adding that Ford and Tata “will proceed with further substantive discussions”. Analysts value Jaguar and Land Rover at one billion pounds.
11:30AM New York – Oil remains near elevated level after the weekly inventory report in the U.S. State Street replaces its fixed income head after losses.
State Street (
STT: chart) rose 7% or $5.68 to $84.52 after it said that it has booked a reserve of $618 million to cover losses from fixed income investments.
State Street announced today that it will record a net charge, after taxes, in the fourth quarter of 2007 of $279 million, or $0.71 per share. The purpose of the charge is to establish a reserve to address legal exposure and other costs associated with the underperformance of certain active fixed-income strategies managed by State Street Global Advisors, the company’s investment management arm.
In aggregate, the reserve will be $618 million on a pre-tax basis. The impact to earnings of the net charge, after taking into account the tax effect of the reserve and associated lower incentive compensation cost, will be $279 million.
The press release from State Street also said that State Street also announced that James S. Phalen, currently executive vice president and head of international operations for investment servicing and investment research and trading, is returning to SSgA as interim president and chief executive officer. Phalen, age 57, succeeds William W. Hunt who has resigned from State Street.
Oil traded 67 cents lower to $95.96 after the U.S. weekly report on inventories.
U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) dropped by 4.0 million barrels compared to the previous week. At 289.6 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are in the lower half of the average range for this time of year.
Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 1.9 million barrels last week, but are in the lower half of the average range. Both finished gasoline inventories and gasoline blending components inventories increased last week.
Distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.6 million barrels, and are near the lower limit of the average range for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 1.7 million barrels last week.
Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 7.3 million barrels last week, and are in the bottom half of the average range for this time of year.
[10:30AM New York – U.S. stocks trade sideways as oil and gold are near elevated levels and jobless claims rise at the end of last week.
Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 50.16 to 13,093.98, Nasdaq declined 2.40 to 2,608.48, and S&P 500 increased 5.64 to 1,452.80.
Oil and gold are trending lower by a fraction but are still trading near the record levels.
Wheat futures are up 2.6% to 938.75 cents per bushel in New York Mercantile Exchange trading. Soybean futures are up 1.4% or 4.60 cents to 348.70 cents and sugar futures added 2.2% or 0.23 to 10.96 cents.
The Labor Department reported weekly jobless claims fell 21,000 to 336,000 at the end of the last week. In a separate report published by Automatic Data Processing and Macroeconomic Advisers showed that the December private sector payroll increased 40,000. The Labor Department is scheduled to issue its report on the December payroll tomorrow.
