Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Pending Home Sales Jump

06/02/09 Pending Home Sales increased far more than thought in pril, a sign that the housing market maybe on the path toward recovery.

Red Session For The Greenback Again

06/02/09 The US dollar managed to slide yet again this session as risk appetite continues to flourish.

Oil Prices Rise Above $69

06/02/09 Front month crude prices touched above $69 a barrel this session, its highest level for the year.

Weak dollar, China data boost oil prices


Oil prices pushed to new highs for the year yesterday on a weak dollar and new data suggesting manufacturing in China has strengthened. Both of those factors helped send energy prices to record highs last summer.
The national average gasoline price over the weekend rose above $2.50 a gallon for the first time since October.

Benchmark crude oil for July delivery rose $2.27 to settle at $68.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest close since November. On the ICE Futures exchange in London, Brent crude rose $2.45 to settle at $67.97 a barrel.
Source :

Gold Bounces as Euro Hits 2009 High, But "No Strong Investment" Despite US Hyper-Inflation Fears


THE PRICE OF WHOLESALE GOLD bounced in London on Tuesday morning, reaching $983 an ounce for Dollar investors and recovering from near 5-week lows versus the British Pound.

The Gold Price in Euros held steady at €689 as the single currency also leapt, jumping to new 2009 highs against the Dollar above $1.4270.

"Upside for gold could be limited today," reckons Walter de Wet at Standard Bank in a note. "There were fairly large volumes of physical gold selling [on Monday] when the price moved above $980."

But with US Treasury bond prices down more than 5% for the year to date, and "while higher yields increase the cost of holding gold in the longer run," de Wet adds, "right now it signals reduced investment appetite for exposure to the US and a weaker Dollar."

"Don't be complacent and think there isn't any alternative for China to buy your bills and bonds," warned former central-bank advisor Yu Yongding - scheduled to meet US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner in Beijing today - in an interview on Monday.

"The Euro is an alternative. And there are lots of raw materials we can still buy."

According to data from Bloomberg , foreign investment in US Treasury debt rose nearly $69 billion in May, with strong foreign demand for last week's auction of $101bn in new bonds.

The Federal Reserve will continue its $300bn "quantitative easing" of longer-term interest rates by purchasing 10- and 2-year bonds in the open market tomorrow and Thursday.

"Most of the ongoing rally in the precious metal is more driven by a stark weakness in the US Dollar than the risk averse buying we saw last winter," agrees Andrey Kryuchenkov at VTB Capital in London, quoted by The Telegraph.

Read entire article :


US Stocks Higher On Housing Data; Financials Stay Lower

Stocks built on Monday's rally in a broad push higher Tuesday as investors digested encouraging housing data, though a rising supply of shares in several Wall Street bellwethers damped financials.

Major indexes seesawed between gains and losses through the day, but major milestones for the year remained in sight. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was recently up 30 points, or 0.4%, to 8751. At its morning high, the blue-chip measure rose about 66 points, almost 11 points above its 2008 close of 8776.39.

Read entire article :








Credit and Credibility , The Credit Crunch

With the economy in a downward spiral, more and more people are taking advantage of credit card offers to make ends meet, but are the credit card companies actually taking advantage of their customers? In the week in which federal regulators adopted sweeping new rules for the credit card industry, NOW meets families struggling to pay off their credit card debt. Such debt has become significantly larger thanks to questionable industry practices like doubling and tripling interest rates, increasing fees and penalties, and shrinking credit limits. We meet people like Andrew Spurlock and his wife Michelle, who are raising three children while watching the interest rates and fees on their credit cards skyrocket. Michelle was horrified when her interest rate jumped from seven percent to 30 percent from one day to the next, despite claiming she always paid her monthly minimum. Michelle and her husband are fighting off financial ruin as they struggle to pay off their debt. Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren, an expert on debt and the middle class, says credit card companies are deceiving customers in order to maximize profits. "You would think that if you upheld your end of the contract that the contract would be binding. But in the case of credit cards, you would be wrong," Warren, tells NOW. This week, NOW takes a hard look at the small print in credit card offers, and at Congressional legislation aimed at regulating the industry. Are you getting the credit you deserve?

Gold Rises in New York, London as Weaker Dollar Boosts Demand


By Nicholas Larkin

June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Gold rose in New York and London as a decline by the dollar increased the metal’s appeal as an alternative investment. Silver also advanced.

The U.S. Dollar Index, a gauge of the currency’s value versus six counterparts, fell as much as 0.8 percent to the lowest since Dec. 18. Gold, which typically gains when the dollar weakens, touched a 14-week peak before closing yesterday and silver reached its highest in almost 10 months.

Investors continue “to track moves in the dollar, the key factor driving gold,” Pradeep Unni, an analyst at Richcomm Global Services in Dubai, said in a note. “As optimism grows that the worst of the economic downturn is over,” the correlation between gold and the dollar has returned, he said.

Gold futures for August delivery rose $1.90, or 0.2 percent, to $981.90 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Comex division at 8:43 a.m. local time. The contract earlier fell as much as 1 percent. Bullion for immediate delivery in London gained $5.16, or 0.5 percent, to $980.43.

The metal slipped to $973.50 an ounce in the morning “fixing” in London, used by some mining companies to sell production, from $981.75 at yesterday’s afternoon fixing. Gold briefly traded above $1,000 in the U.K. capital on Feb. 20, the first time the metal had breached that price since March 2008, when it climbed to a record $1,032.70.

“The week is likely to be dominated by further developments on the currency market, with the rally possibly slowing down if the dollar holds above 79-78.5” as tracked by the index, Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital in London, said in a note. The index fell as low as 78.524 today.

Gold Trust

Investment in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest exchange- traded fund backed by bullion, rose to a record 1,134.03 metric tons yesterday, the company’s Web site showed. That’s the first gain since May 22.

“One day of decent flows is not enough to change our minds on the near-term outlook for gold,” John Reade, UBS AG’s head metals strategist in London, said in a report. “We are seeing no strong physical gold investment, and we hold our one-month forecast for gold at $950 an ounce.”
Read entire article :
DAILY NEWS ON BOOZE