Waiting for Bernanke - Analyst Blog
August 23 2011 - 5:27AM
Zacks
With the domestic economic calendar on the thin side, the market
will likely find today's manufacturing data coming out of Asia and
Europe to be reassuring enough. The Libyan situation remains fluid,
but it is increasingly becoming obvious that Qadhafi may not have
much time left.
But all eyes are on Bernanke, who will speak about the U.S. economy
at the Fed's annual Jackson Hole confab. Anticipation has been
building that he will repeat his performance from last year and lay
out the plans for another round of quantitative easing.
China's manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) for August
came in modestly better than expected, showing improvement over the
prior month's reading. The composite PMI reading for the Euro Zone
also came in better than expected, though it stayed steady at the
prior month's level. Importantly, Germany's PMI posted decent
momentum. The positive aspect of the Chinese and Euro Zone PMI data
is not so much that it is very good, but rather that it could have
been quite bad. And that counts for something in these grim
times.
With respect to "Bernanke Watch," I am not looking for an
announcement of a new quantitative easing program. What we will get
instead is a discussion from the Fed Chief of the different policy
options at the central bank's disposal and their pros and cons. The
high inflation readings of recent months make it almost impossible
for him to announce another round of easing.
And as we found from the last FOMC meeting, Bernanke does not have
all his members on-board for a fresh round of monetary easing.
Unless growth and inflation readings drop precipitously in the
coming months, all the talk of further easing will likely come to
nothing.
On the earnings front, we got a top- and bottom-line beat from
H.J. Heinz (HNZ/url]), though rising input costs
weighed on the ketchup-maker's margins.
Medtronic
([url='/p.php?pid=squote&symbol=mdt%5Dmdt%3C%2Fa'>), the
largest medical device maker, came out with inline earnings on a
modest revenue beat. Results would have fallen short of
expectations without positive contribution from foreign exhange
effects. In other corporate news, we have share buyback
announcements from
Lowe's (LOW) for $5 billion and
Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) for $500
million.
ALPHA NATRL RES (ANR): Free Stock Analysis Report
HEINZ (HJ) CO (HNZ): Free Stock Analysis Report
LOWES COS (LOW): Free Stock Analysis Report
MEDTRONIC (MDT): Free Stock Analysis Report
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