Mid-day Update

 The Dow has been pushing higher with AA, CAT, C, JPM, and MCD (McDonalds) leading the way.  Volume is still below average, but that hasn’t stopped some stocks from bidding upwards.  This all comes on the back of the following news items:

Bank of America is freezing it’s Colombia Strategic Cash Portfolio fund.  It has about $12 billion in assets.  BofA spokesman says the fund was geared towards high net worth investors and will not take subscriptions or redemptions due to the credit crunch.

MBIA Inc  is raising $1 billion in capital from Warburg Pincus.  High short interest in all things mortgage related has created an upsurge in share price on many of those related stocks.

October Pending Home Sales month over month is 0.6%, with prior revised to 1.4% vs. .02%.

JP Morgan Chase (JPM) is reportedly in “cooperation talks” (?) with the Investment Group of Dubai.  

NY Fed says will redeem $5 billion of Treasury note holdings on Thursday (Dec. 13) in order to “give the desk greater flexibility in day to day management of reserve levels.”

Pre Market - December 10th 2007

Events to expect this week, of course all eyes are on tomorrow, 2:15pm for the FOMC announcement.

 

Monday, December 10, 2007

• 10:00am Oct Pending Home Sales
• 11:00am Treasury’s 10-year note announcement

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

• 10:00am December IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism, Oct Wholesale Inventories (last 0.8%)
• 2:15pm US FOMC Interest Rate Decision

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

• 8:30am Oct Trade Balance, Nov Import Price Index
• 10:30am Crude Oil/Gasoline/Distillate Inventories
• 2:00pm Nov Monthly Budget Statement

Thursday, December 13, 2007

• 8:30am Initial Jobless Claims, Continuing Claims, Nov PPI,  Nov Advance Retail Sales (last 0.2%), Nov retail sales less autos (last 0.2%), Oct Business Inventories (last 0.4%)
• 10:30am Natural Gas Inventories
• 1:00pm Treasury’s 10 year note auction results

Friday, December 14, 2007

• 8:30am Nov CPI (last m/m 0.3%, y/y 3.5%, ex food and energy m/m 0.2%, y/y 2.2%)
• 9:15am Nov Industrial Production (last –0.5%), Nov Capacity Utilization (last 81.7%)