Thursday Oct 19, 2006

Inflation and natural gas

Taipan Group's Dynamic Market Alert

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Inflation and natural gas

by J. Christoph Amberger

Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission, wrote today for the Asia Times Online under the headline “Inflation Deflation”:

“Since September 2005, core consumer prices have risen 2.9%, and the compound annual rate of change for the three months ending in September was 2.7%.

“Core consumer price inflation remains above Fed chief Ben Bernanke’s target range of 1 to 2%. However, core consumer price inflation in recent months reflected the continuing pass-through of prior surges in energy prices to non-energy products. Those pressures are now reversing.

“Slowing economic growth, moderating housing prices and falling oil and natural gas prices should relieve pressures on both the broader consumer price index and core consumer prices. Inflation should decline the remainder of this year.”

Which means that rising U.S. interest rates should no longer be a serious concern keeping investors from putting their assets into U.S. equities.

-- New tests indicate that Russian state monopolist Gazprom’s Shtokman field contains at leas four trillion cubic meters of natural gas.

Gazprom has already uninvited all foreign energy giants -- among them Chevron, ConocoPhilips, Total, as well as Statoil and Norsk Hydro -- that it had courted previously, intending to exploit the field all by themselves.

The gas produced is supposed to be piped to Germany through the new undersea pipeline running at the bottom of the Baltic Sea -- and thus bypassing all those former Soviet and Warsaw Pact satellites that these days might levy taxes, fees and tolls on the Russians. From Germany, liquefied natural gas was slated to be shipped to the United States, where Gazprom wants to carve itself a 10% share of the natural-gas market.

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Earnings Announcements Friday, October 20, 2006

3M Company, Alfa Corporation, Arch Coal Inc, Merck & Company Inc, and Satyam Computer Services Ltd are releasing earnings.
 
Brought to you by http://www.AmericanCapitalist.net

Unlock Dates for October 2006

10/23/06 – Corel Corporation is unlocking 6.5 million shares.
10/31/06 – Delek US Holdings is unlocking 10 million shares.

Brought to you by http://www.vixtrader.com

Upgrades and Downgrades

Dumb downgrade of the Week: Take-Two Interactive was downgraded by Am Tech / JSA Research from Buy to Neutral on the day Bully is being released by subsidiary, RockStar Games. 

Advanced Micro downgraded by JP Morgan from Neutral to Underweight.

Allstate downgraded by UBS from Buy to Neutral.

Apollo Group downgraded by Bear Stearns from Outperform to Peer Perform.

Citrix Systems downgraded by Stifel Nicolaus (Buy to Hold), Credit Suisse (Outperform to Neutral) and by Robert W. Baird (Outperform to
Neutral).

General Dynamics downgraded by Credit Suisse from Outperform to Neutral.

Hershey Foods downgraded by Stifel Nicolaus from Buy to Hold.

AT&T upgraded by Lehman Brothers from Equal Weight to Overweight.

Juniper Networks upgraded by Goldman Sachs from Sell to Neutral.

Verizon upgraded by Lehman Brothers from Equal Weight to Overweight.

Brought to you by http://www.gressor.com

Quote of the Day:

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- Michelle Malkin, Oct. 18, 2006

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