Spokeswoman Mary Remuzzi said that the restructuring included shifting employees to new positions that help optimize the new model. Nike’s European unit is one of the two regions that failed to generate two digit revenue and the only to post negative earnings.

Nike’s European profits fell by 6% this quarter, paired by a 7% increase in sales, rising sales to over $1 billion. Profits are down 18% to $597 million and sales rose 4% to $4.1 billion for the fiscal year. Worldwide, Nike had a revenue growth rate of 12%. 12% is a decent rate of growth, however, they also faced a 12% increase in sales and administrative expenses. Nike’s margins fell 7.6%.

David Cornes holds a degree in Economics from the University of Montana.

The Hang Seng outdoes the Nikkei adding 2.2% on the day, 4.4% for June, yet not enough to get Q2 out of the red finishing down 5.4%. This index will be closed on Monday for a public holiday. Espirit holdings was the only loss today for the index, down 1%, having been very shaky due to top executives leaving. Sands China gained the most in the index up 5.6%.

You guessed it, European shares are also up on news that EU leaders will take emergency action to bring down Spain and Italy’s borrowing costs, this ruling will help markets, however does nothing to solve the real issue. The FTSEurofirst 300 is up 1.4% led with Eurozone banks rising 3.9%.

Ford, oddly currently up in pre-trade, was removed from Citigroup’s top pick list as Ford warns of global losses. Citigroup, who also recently updated Nike to buy, defends them as a quality long term pick, after their quarter 4 showed worse than expected profits and analysts cut their target price from 123 to $98.

Crude is soaring up close to 3% today, making it at $80 even, natural gas, gold and silver follow each up between 1.75 and 3%.

Contributer Chris Rygh is currently pursuing his MBA in Wisconsin and has a passion for the Market.
Comments can be directed to ryghcw19@uww.edu

In better news, JP Morgan now estimates losses to only be in the $4-$6 billion range down from the original $9 billion estimate. The company also expects to post large profits for the second quarter earnings.

More importantly, today marks the announcement of the Personal Income and Outlay consensus and the Personal Spending report. In the April’s Personal Income consensus we saw a modest 0.2% increase and for Personal Spending, 0.3%. The numbers for May are supposed to be even smaller if any increase at all due to aggregate earnings declining by 0.1% and retail and motor sales down. This announcement is bound to only further the highlight on the difficult jobs market and effect on consumers.

As for futures, at the close yesterday S&P 500 was down 0.21% and the 10-year treasuries were up 3.14%. Oil is also doing well up 3.67% yesterday at the close while the dollar was down 1.07%.

To wrap this rager up, we are pleased to announce that the EU has finally reached a decision after not one but 19 summits. What did they decide? To use the EU bailout funds to recapitalize struggling banks directly. And in addition to recapitalizing the banks, the countries have also decided to create a joint bank supervising body to oversee all banks. Because of this unexpected decision markets are up, Euro Stoxx 50 up by 2.09%, the Euro is at $1.2574 up from $1.2430 and the interest rates on 10-year Spanish and Italian bonds are down as well.

That’s all for today folks, make sure to check out our upcoming webinar and follow us on Twitter, @Keeneonmarket!

Andrea@KeeneOnTheMarket.com

Another Tough day for gold and silver…. Silver broke very key support levels, the hopes of a summer rally are getting smaller and smaller, at least for the time being. The only markets that ended up in the green today were the hooved animals. The Stock Market Rip Rawred into the close for no apparent reason. In my opionon, it makes for another good chance to get short selected names that are headed much lower. Crude keeps falling and the government keeps pissing me off. I think healthcare and student loans are the next big bubbles. 

Initial jobless claims came in 1K higher than analysts’ consensus at 386K, 6K lower than last week. The U.S. quarterly GDP came in on target and the same as the previous quarter at 1.9%.

S&P 500 futures fell 13 points to 1312.50, NASDAQ futures fell 38 points to 2519.75 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 129 points to 12424.00.

Gold futures fell $24.10 to 1554.30 and WTI crude futures fell $1.66 to $78.55.

Corn continued to rallyfor the 5th day in a row after the driest season in 24 years. So far corn is up 17% this month. This morning December corn futures were trading at $6.420.

Family Dollar Stores, Inc.’s (FDO) earnings jumped 12% after an increase in sales. Although they posted great earnings, the guidance for the rest of the year caused their shares to trade 3.37% lower at $66.80.

AOL gained 53 cents (1.94%) after agreeing buy back $400 million of its shares between $27 and $30. AOL shares have a 52-week trading range of $10.06 to $28.36.

Deutsche Bank (DB) fell 5.49% after being the target of an investigation on interest rate-rigging.

David Cornes holds a degree in economics from the University of Montana.