Ahead of Wall Street - December 15, 2011 - Ahead of Wall Street
December 15 2011 - 3:58AM
Zacks
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Today’s heavy economic schedule will likely keep the markets
focused on domestic matters. The good start provided by the
positive initial Jobless Claims report and the Empire State
manufacturing survey should help reverse the downtrend of the last
three trading sessions. Other key economic reports on deck include
the November Industrial Production report and the Philly Fed
regional manufacturing survey for December.
Of the pre-market releases, the most favorable reading was on
the initial Jobless Claims front, which continued the positive
momentum from last week by falling to the lowest level in more than
three years. Contrary to expectations of some sort of a give back
following last week’s big drop in initial claims, we got another
big 19K drop, taking the weekly initial claims level further down
to 366K. The four-week average is now at 388K. It is reassuring to
see that this key series has again started moving in the right
direction, which in line with other labor market readings. The
wholesale inflation reading was tad hotter than expected, but
broadly in-line with expectations.
In corporate news, we have better than expected results from
FedEx (FDX) this morning. The package delivery
giant also reaffirmed its outlook for the year, bucking recent
trend of profit warnings from a number of major firms. In other
news, Lam Research (LRCX), the maker of
semi-conductor equipment, plans to buy Novellus
Systems (NVLS) in an all-stock deal valued at $3.3
billion.
Sheraz Mian
Director of Research
FEDEX CORP (FDX): Free Stock Analysis Report
LAM RESEARCH (LRCX): Free Stock Analysis Report
NOVELLUS SYS (NVLS): Free Stock Analysis Report
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