Monday was a pretty historic day on Wall Street, but before I get to the day’s events, I’ll talk about some things that happened over the weekend and before Monday’s opening bell. First, the Fed cut its discount rate (direct loans to commercial banks) by 25 bp to 3.25% to help with the lending/capital problems many banks are currently facing. Also, weakness in the foreign markets and futures was pointing to a huge gap lower at the open after news that JPMorgan bought Bear Stearns for only $2/share (about $236M total) with the Federal Reserve providing financing for the deal. Just last Thursday, Bear Stearns was trading for about $55/share (Source: Bloomberg.com). Just to put things in perspective, $236M is less than what the Yankees paid for Alex Rodriguez!
The bailout of Bear Stearns sparked a massive, broad-based sell-off. What concerned investors the most was whether or not the problems that Bear Stearns experienced were also present at other banks. If the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan valued BSC at only $2/share, what should the other banks be valued at? For Bear Stearns, it was get bought out or go bankrupt.
Off of this news, traders unwound many of their winning bets from the past month. Commodities (oil, copper, gas) sold-off very hard as crude oil declined $4.53/barrel. The basic materials and energy stocks were hit the hardest. Gold continued its rally passed $1000 as the U.S. Dollar Index continued its slide. Treasuries also continued their rally. There was talk all over CNBC that we are in a recession and demand for oil and other commodities will decline. The volatility index (^VIX) spiked to about 35-36 as many people were washed out of the market.
However, stocks never retested their morning lows, and the Dow managed to finish the day in positive territory. There was some good news as Merck’s “scientists used a new method to find a group of genes that act together in networks of people to spur obesity” (Source: Bloomberg.com). Shares of Merck and Johnson & Johnson finish the day positive. Verizon and AT&T and other large-cap tech names were also strong.
A few months ago we said the Fed was “behind the curve,” and right now, they are desperately trying everything within their power to stave off a worldwide financial market meltdown. Monday, the Fed created another new lending facility for investment banks that will provide them with much needed financing (Source: CNBC.com). According to Bloomberg.com, “The Fed said it will allow primary dealers to borrow at the discount rate in exchange for a ‘broad range’' of investment-grade collateral. The central bank…said it also extended the maximum term of discount- window loans to 90 days from 30 days.”
I would regard Monday’s action as very bullish. The markets could have easily been down 4+%, but they weren’t. The markets weathered a very tough storm and many people believe most of the bad news is “priced in” already. It’s nice to see the Fed finally taking a hands-on approach, but a lot of this mess could have been avoided if they took more action when these problems first arose last summer.
In other news…
- Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers were downgraded to “neutral” by UBS
- The Chicago Mercantile Exchange agreed to buy the NY Mercantile Exchange for $9.4B
- A class action lawsuit has been filed against Bear Sterns suggesting that the company’s management made false and misleading statements (Briefing.com)
- Industrial production fell 0.5% while analysts were only looking for a 0.1% decline
- “The NY Empire State Index, a regional manufacturing survey, fell to -22.2 from -11.7. This was worse than the expected reading of -7.4” (Source: Briefing.com)
- Fed fund futures point to a 20% chance of a 125bp cut and 80% chance of a 100bp cut
- Tomorrow is Visa’s IPO – the price right now is $37-42 for 406M shares – and many are saying this will be the hottest IPO of the year
- Tomorrow, all eyes will be on the Fed and the Goldman and Lehman earnings
DJIA 11,972.25 +21.16 (+0.18%)
Nasdaq 2,177.01 -35.48 (-1.60%)
S&P 500 1,276.60 -11.54 (-0.90%)
2-Yr Bond 1.35% -0.12
10-Yr Bond 3.34% -0.10
30-Yr Bond 4.29% -0.06
Crude Oil (Apr) 105.68 -4.53
Nat Gas (Apr) 9.100 -0.768
Gold (Apr) 1002.60 +3.10
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