Futures set hopes for second-day gains - UPDATE 1 12.06.2003 13:11 Headlines
LONDON (AFX) - U.S. stock futures were marked moderately higher in pre-open
trading on Thursday as dealers looked for second-day gains in New York stocks.
The prospects for interest rate cuts in the U.S. and in Europe helped drive
stocks on Wednesday; those gains were following through in the European markets
on Thursday.
Currencies were volatile. Sterling surged to a 3.5-year high vs. the dollar,
rising 0.61 percent to $1.6758. The euro graced $1.18, a rise of 0.4 percent,
before dropping back to $1.1747.
"Sterling has become the top-performer because the (Bank of England) Monetary
Policy Committee is not seen cutting rates while even some of the previous
high-yielders -- the Australian dollar and the Canadian dollar in particular --
are now subject to rate-cut speculation," said analyst Will Rugg at S&P in
London.
Rate cut hopes were cemented in Europe as ECB President Wim Duisenberg spoke to
a European parliament committee. "Economic growth in the first half of 2003 is
likely to have been weak, very weak, and expectations for annual average growth
of this year and 2004 have had to be scaled down," he said.
The German financial sector continued its run-up, with HypoVereinsBank gaining
5.3 percent and Commerzbank rising 4 percent on a swirl of consolidation talk,
both from the oft-floated HVB-Commerzbank combination and on various scenarios
involving U.S. banks entrance into the German banking sector.
Jans Meyer, a portfolio manager at Deka Investmentfonds, told MarketWatch
Wednesday that the M&A rumors are not likely to be serious, but are the product
of renewed investor interest in German banks, particularly on the part of hedge
funds and U.S. and U.K. investors.
"What we can say is the worst appears to be over," Meyer said, noting that
German banks may report stronger earnings for 2003 on the back of improved bad
loan provisions rather than improvement in the economic outlook.
See and and
Few underlying U.S. stocks were trading in Frankfurt. Chipmaker Texas
Instruments was seeing something of a recovery from Wednesday's 7.5 percent
slump. The stock was marked around $19.04, an about 20 cent gain.
Tech bellwethers Microsoft and IBM were marked higher, in line with the
futures in light trade.
The Philadephia Stock Exchange announced it will make several changes to its
Semiconductor Stock Index beginning June 23.
Lattice Semiconductor will be dropped. ST Microelectronics and Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing will be added to the index. Taiwan Semi shares
trading in Taipei rose 3.5 percent on Thursday. STM rose 0.8 percent in Paris.
A downgrade surfaced in the semiconductor capital equipment sector as UBS cut
Novellus Systems to a reduce from a neutral on valuation overnight. The sector
was impacted on Wednesday after Cymer warned that second-quarter revenue would
fall short of expectations due to the push out of krypton fluoride light source
shipments resulting from its customers' inventory reduction programs.
UBS also cut its rating on Medimmune to "neutral" from "buy" citing valuation.
The firm said it's confident that Medimmune's FluMist product will receive
approval in the second quarter, but it believes this event is already reflected
in the stock price.
In other broker comment, Merrill Lynch lowered its license revenue estimate for
software vendor PeopleSoft , citing merger-related customer disruption
potential. Merrill said it now sees second quarter license revenue down 1
percent over the first quarter, or to $80 million from $89 million.
"We assume investors are anticipating some level of weakness in the quarter but
the stock is still trading at a premium to the Oracle $16 offer because
expectations are for an increased bid," the broker said, adding "at this point
we do not believe Oracle is going to increase their bid."
Prudential raised its rating on Boston Scientific to a buy overnight.
AOL Time Warner was edging lower in euro trading in Frankfurt, marked down
around 10 cents at the $15.60 level.
Bertelsmann's withdrawal from talks over a book publishing deal with AOL Time
Warner has created reservations in AOL over a joint venture of its Warner Music
Group with the BMG unit of Bertelsmann, the New York Times is reporting, citing
two executives.
In more overnight news, the New York Post is reporting that General Electric Co.
agreed to sell its bond insurance unit around $2 billion. The report, citing
sources, said the consortium includes PMI, Bank of America Corp. and private
equity firms Blackstone Group and Cypress Group.
Among ADRs of note, shares of French construction firm Lafarge dropped 5.6
percent after it said on Thursday that it will raise 1.28 billion euros in a
rights issue, offering 4 new shares for every 17 held.
GlaxoSmithKline rose 0.4 percent. Swiss rival Novartis said the U.S.
International Trade Commission said a dispute over the antibiotic Augmentin
should go to trial.
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