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Gold9472
06-24-2005, 06:09 PM
Dow Drops 123 As Crude Weighs on Stocks

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050624/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street;_ylt=Ai.H9WXnheMkznJ3fohYp76yBhIF;_ylu =X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

(Gold9472: I think "it" is beginning... I think America's financial institutions are going to take a massive hit. Well, as long as the Bush Family's money is safe in off shore accounts, then everything will be ok.)

By MICHAEL J. MARTINEZ, AP Business Writer 44 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Rising oil prices plagued Wall Street again Friday as the Dow Jones industrial average suffered its second straight 100-point-plus loss, ending a week dominated by concerns that energy costs would soon eat into corporate profits. All three indexes finished the week substantially lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 123.60, or 1.19 percent, to 10,297.84, after plunging more than 166 points the previous session.

The broader gauges, which also posted big losses Thursday, were down as well. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 9.16, or 0.76 percent, to 1,191.57. The Nasdaq composite index lost 17.39, or 0.84 percent, to 2,053.27.

Investors overlooked decent economic news, choosing instead to focus on oil. Transportation and manufacturing companies — considered the most oil-dependent — were hardest hit, though the selling was spread throughout the market as crude oil futures threatened to top the psychologically significant $60-per-barrel barrier for the second day in a row.

"The crude situation is a big concern right now," said Brian Williamson, an equity trader at The Boston Company Asset Management. "People aren't really looking at the economic numbers."

Even the economic data, while mostly positive, raised some concerns. The Commerce Department reported a 5.5 percent rise in orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods last month, but much of that was due to a surge in demand for commercial aircraft. With transportation orders removed, durable goods orders fell 0.2 percent in May, the third decline in the past four months.

Also adding some volatility to the market, institutional investors were adjusting their portfolios to reflect the annual rebalancing of the Russell indexes.

The bond market reflected investors' uncertainty, making substantial gains as stocks dropped. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 3.92 percent, down from 3.96 percent late Thursday. The dollar fell against most major currencies and gold prices also lost ground.

Crude oil futures were up 42 cents at $59.84 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, coming one day after oil prices surged past the $60 per barrel level for a new intraday high.

With few earnings reports and a relative dearth of economic news, oil remained the market's focus for nearly the entire week. The drop in stock prices Thursday effectively ended, at least for the short-term, the market's recent rally. For the week, the Dow lost 3.06 percent, the S&P fell 2.09 percent, and the Nasdaq dropped 1.76 percent.

In other economic news, sales of new homes climbed to the second highest level in history, but median home prices fell sharply in May. The government reported that sales of new single-family homes rose by 2.1 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.3 million homes, but the median cost dropped 6.5 percent to $217,000.

However, the economic data simply wasn't positive enough — or broad enough — to make a dent in investors' pessimism over the future effects of higher crude prices.

"People need a good reason to buy stocks, but they always have reasons to sell," said John Waterman, chief investment officer at Rittenhouse Asset Management. "We're seeing mixed economic data, high oil prices, so where do you put your money? Investors chase momentum, and there's none here."

Citigroup Inc. was up 7 cents at $46.95 after the world's largest financial services firm announced a $3.7 billion deal to swap most of its asset-management business for the broker-dealer business of Legg Mason Inc., as well as Legg Mason stock and a loan to the Baltimore financial-services firm. Legg Mason gained 15.3 percent, or $13.01, to $98 on the news.

Guidant Corp. sank 6.9 percent, or $4.70, to $63.90, after the medical devices maker warned doctors to avoid implanting certain defibrillator models due to manufacturing defects. The company has also alerted the Food and Drug Administration, which may classify the action as a recall.

Unocal Corp. added 66 cents to $65.68 after the Chinese state-owned oil company CNOOC Ltd., which made an unsolicited $18.5 billion offer for the oil company on Thursday, said it was willing to discuss selling some Unocal assets and putting others under American management. The announcement came after four members of Congress called on the U.S. government to review the security implications of the proposed deal. Rival bidder Chevron Corp. lost 64 cents to $56.69.

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks smaller company stocks, was down 3.72, or 0.59 percent, at 630.40.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by nearly 5 to 3 on the New York Stock Exchange, where preliminary consolidated volume came to 2.49 billion shares, compared with 2.02 billion traded on Thursday.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average slipped 0.34 percent. In Europe, France's CAC-40 fell 0.95 percent, Britain's FTSE 100 declined 0.69 percent and Germany's DAX index was down 1.32 percent.
___

The Dow Jones industrials ended the week down 325.23, or 3.06 percent, finishing at 10,297.84. The S&P 500 index lost 25.39, or 2.09 percent, to close at 1,191.57.

The Nasdaq fell 36.84, or 1.76 percent, during the week, closing Friday at 2,053.27.

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks smaller company stocks, closed the week 13.79, or 2.14 percent, lower at 630.40.

The Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index — a free-float weighted index that measures 5,000 U.S. based companies — ended the week at 11,843.88, down 232.22 points from last week. A year ago the index was 11,073.60

Gold9472
06-24-2005, 06:25 PM
Oil prices settle at record high
Crude ends Nymex trading session at $59.84 a barrel

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5612507/

The Associated Press
Updated: 3:44 p.m. ET June 24, 2005

NEW YORK - Crude oil futures settled at a record near $60 a barrel Friday as prices rose on speculative buying and fears of supply disruptions due to refinery glitches.

Analysts said the bullish momentum was supported mainly by talk of several minor refinery snags in California, including an outage at Shell’s Martinez plant, fueling fears of supply disruptions at the start of the high-demand summer driving season. OPEC suggestions that it was willing to hike output left markets unimpressed, they said.

After climbing as high as $60 a barrel for the second straight day, light, sweet crude for August settled at $59.84, an increase of 42 cents on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was a record close on Nymex, where oil futures have been traded since 1983.

Heating oil futures fell 2.52 cents to $1.6504 per gallon, while gasoline futures fell less than a penny to $1.6557 per gallon.

On London’s International Petroleum Exchange, Brent crude futures for August delivery rose 40 cents to settle at $58.40 a barrel.

Oil prices are nearly 60 percent higher than a year ago, though still below the inflation-adjusted high above $90 a barrel set in 1980.

“It’s hard to find sellers in the market. ... Bids are outnumbering offers,” said Ken Hasegawa, a broker at Tokyo-based Himawari CX.

It was not the first time the August crude contract hit the $60 a barrel level — that happened back on April 4, when prices hit $60.02. But it is significant because August is now the front month contract, meaning it is the next to expire and is generally the most actively traded.

The July contract expired Tuesday.

Analyst Daniel Hynes at ANZ Bank in Melbourne, Australia, said the rise has “almost purely been built on supply disruption fears.” PVM Oil Associates in Vienna, Austria, touched on the same theme, saying the bullish trend was due to “strong demand and against a background of capacity tightness.”

Any glitch in the aging U.S. refining system puts more strain on the global supply chain because its refining capacity is running at maximized levels, making the world’s largest energy consumer reliant on imports of gasoline. The logjam in the production line is contributing to the build in petroleum products in America, analysts say.

Also, there is little excess production capacity to buffer the market from any prolonged output disruption. Excess production capacity is estimated to be about 1.5 million barrels a day.

As global demand stays strong, and populous countries such as China and India increase their consumption of energy, there are fears the producers will not be able to meet escalating demand as the second half of 2005 kicks in.

China imported 10.4 million metric tons of crude oil in May, or an average of 2.46 million barrels a day, up 8.2 percent from a year ago, data issued Friday by the General Administration of Customs showed.

Still, with all these factors in the mix, analysts said the market was less affected by any significant loss of supply or sign of a demand surge than it was by speculation.

Japan’s Economy Minister Heizo Takenaka said Friday Tokyo will continue to monitor oil prices closely to see if the current surge is part of a long-term trend that could be a potential risk for Japan, the world’s No. 1 oil importer.

“Oil prices in the mid- to long-term are a risk factor for the economy. We must closely monitor their moves,” he told a news conference.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

beltman713
06-24-2005, 07:26 PM
It's ok, Bush says nu-cu-lar energy is going to save us, and it's good for the environment too.