Thursday 19 July 2012

by

JAPAN

  • Japan’s public debt reached JP¥1.086quadrillion (i.e: JP¥1,086,000,000,000,000) about a month ago, and is rising. That figure translates to USD14 trillion, approaching USA’s $15.9 trillion public debt. There is a risk that Japan will default before Europe does. Analysts suggest that when a crash occurs it will be sudden. [More]

USA

US economy

  • Sales of existing homes fell in Jun 2012 by 5.4% to an annual rate of 4.37m. [More]

Commodities

  • Gold Futures (Aug): $1,580/oz, up $9.60 from $1,571/oz
  • Oil Futures (WTI LSC Aug – NY trading): $92.66/barrel, up $2.79 (3%) from $89.87/barrel

Treasury yields

  • 30-year: 2.61%,up a point from 2.60%
  • 10-year: 1.51%, up a point from 1.50%
  • 5-year: 0.61%, unchanged

Share market indices

  • S+P 500: 1,376 +0.27%
  • DJIA: 12,943 +0.27%
  • NASDAQ: 2,966 +0.79%

Tech stock news

  • Advanced Micro Devices [NYSE:AMD] Jun 2012 quarter sales were in line with reduced guidance (down 10%), but EPS of 6 cents were 1 cent below expectations. [More]
  • Google [NASDAQ:GOOG] presented its Jun 2012 quarter results today. Revenue was up 35%, benefiting from the May 2012 purchase of Motorola Mobility for $12.5bn. At $10.12 EPS for Q2 2012 was in the expectation range of $10.04 to $10.16, and strongly up on the $8.74 EPS in Q2 2011 [More] [Video]
    Lloyd notes: an interesting observation from Google’s results is that as more opportunities are generated to display advertising, the revenue per advert is declining – i.e: advertisers’ budgets don’t grow at the same rate as more diverse and greater levels of opportunities to display advertisements.
  • Kayak Software Corp [NASDAQ:KYAK] is scheduled to IPO and commence trading tomorrow [More]
  • Microsoft [NASDAQ:MSFT] reported earnings of $0.67 for the 2012 full year, ahead of the $0.62 expected, but below the $0.69 earned last year. Sales were $18bn. [More]
  • Nokia [NYSE:NOK] reported a loss of EUR1.41bn ($1.7bn) in the Jun 2012 quarter, an increase on the EUR0.9bn loss in the Mar 2012 quarter and the EUR0.37bn loss in the Jun 2011 quarter. The EUR1.41bn loss was greater than the EUR0.64bn loss expected. Sales in the Jun 2012 quarter fell 19% to EUR7.54bn, higher than the expected EUR7.32bn. CEO Stephen Elop (a former Microsoft executive) is hoping for a turnaround based on Lumina devices running Windows 8 software. [More]
  • Palo Alto Networks Inc [NYSE:PANW] has raised $260.4m in its IPO (6.2m shares at $42/share) and will begin trading tomorrow. The $42 IPO price was above the (increased) $38-$40 price range of a few days ago [More]

Tech stock price movements

  • Substantial rises (more than 2.0%)
    • Ebay [NASDAQ:EBAY]: up 8.63% to $43.95
    • Groupon [NASDAQ:GRPN]: up 4.67% to $7.40
    • Qualcomm [NASDAQ:QCOM]: up 4.26% to $58.44
    • Amazon [NASDAQ:AMZN]: up 4.00% to $226.17
    • Nokia [NYSE:NOK]: up 6.94% to $1.85 on higher than expected sales in the Jun 2012 quarter
    • Linkedin [NYSE:LNKD]: up 3.86% to $108.65
    • IBM [NYSE:IBM]: up 3.77% to $195.34
    • Jive [NASDAQ:JIVE]: up 3.47% to $20.00
    • Salesforce [NYSE:CRM]: up 3.12% to $139.11
    • VMware [NYSE:VMW]: up 3.09% to $92.76
    • Red Hat [NYSE:RHT]: up 3.06% to $55.61
    • Google [NASDAQ:GOOG]: up 2.12% to $593.06. In after hours trading GOOG spiked above $616 (up more than 5%) during the earnings report.
  • Substantial falls (more than 2.0%)
    • Pandora [NYSE:P]: down 3.82% to $10.31

PORTFOLIO

Portfolio index

:-) We outperformed the market today, making up for the last few days.
The AUD strengthened to a record high of EUR0.85158 at 1400 UTC today.

  • Portfolio Index (USD): 1.084 +1.69%
  • AUD 1.00 = USD 1.0480 +0.58%
  • Portfolio Index (AUD): 1.034 +1.11%

NASDAQ

  • Apple [AAPL] $614.49 +1.34%
  • Amazon [AMZN] $226.16 +4.00%
  • Google [GOOG] $593.07 +2.12%

NYSE

  • Linkedin [LNKD] $108.65 +3.86%
  • VMware [VMW] $92.76 +3.09%