Francis is famous for transforming Target’s image through advertising, and was poached by Penney’s last October to start a new merchandising and marketing campaign. Francis turned Target into “the nation’s leading upscale discount store.” Last fall, JCP also acquired their present CEO Ron Johnson from Apple. Since Francis’ departure, Johnson announced that he would assume direct responsibility and oversight over Francis’ previous duties, merchandise and marketing. As of January 28, 2012, Penney’s had 1,102 department stores in 49 states and 49 in Puerto Rico.
David Cornes has a degree in economics from the University of Montana.
The Hang Seng had a late rally to finish flat, their biggest mover being China Overseas Land & Investment losing 3.3%.
European stocks are higher today after recent Spanish news is expected to prompt action from the European Central bank. I believe this could also help prop Japanese stocks tomorrow. The FTSEurofirst 300 gained .4% and at the center of the storm the Madrid IBEX was able to add 1.6%. The British company Weir Group managed a rally of 4.8% after giving an upbeat outlook.
Pre-market Monster Energy took a hit when downgraded to underperform all the way from outperform with analysts seeing a peak in the US energy drink market. MNST is down 1.5% in pre-trade.
JCPenny is also taking a hit in pre-trade after news that a top exec is leaving the company leaving them down 5.5%.
Commodities are set to begin with energies trading down and metal trading in the green this morning.
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
The price of 10-year Spanish government bonds fell, pushing yields to 7.13%, surpassing the 7% level at which Greece, Portugal and Ireland started to lose access to capital markets. Meanwhile, the ratio of past-due loans held by Spanish banks jumped to an 18-year high, further evidence of debt problems in the country.
That overshadowed the New Democracy party’s narrow victory in Greece’s election Sunday, which eased fears the country would face an abrupt and unruly exit from the euro zone. However, the New Democracy party has yet to form a coalition government and if they are unsuccessful, Greece must face another round of elections.
European stocks were mixed, with the Stoxx Europe 600 increasing 0.1%. Spain’s IBEX-35 stock index slumped -3%. Asian markets were broadly higher following Greece’s election results, with Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average surging 1.8% and China’s Shanghai Composite rising 0.4%.
U.S. home builders’ sentiment ticked up in June to the highest level in more than five years, edging out economists’ expectations, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ housing market index. Shoe retailer DSW fell -11.34$ after it announced that second quarter earnings had trailed industry projections. Extrorre Gold Mines (XG) raged todaty after it agreed to be acquired by Yamana Gold, it finished the day up nearly 60%. Finally, Infinity Pharmaceuticals (INFI) dropped -7.46% after the company said it stopped a Phase 2 trial of its treatment for bone and cartilage cancers, citing disappointing clinical data.
Thomas Doherty is an undergraduate at Villanova University majoring in Finance and Economics. Thomas@KeeneOnTheMarket.com
The European election results churned markets, with the Spanish 10-year yield rising above 7%. S&P 500 futures were in a downward trend overnight and trading at 1335.75, down 1.75 points (-.13%) this morning.
Dow Jones Industrial average futures were trading at 12679.00, down 31.00 points (-.24%) and NASDAQ futures were at 2578.25, up 14.25 points (.56%).
WTI Crude futures fell 84 cents to $83.19 a barrel and gold futures declined $2.30 to 1625.80.
BroadVison (BVSN) gained over 10% this morning, after gaining 25% on Friday after Microsoft released that they were interested in acquiring Yammer, one of BroadVision’s rivals in social networking application development.
Groupon (GRPN) rose over 10% after analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded from under-weight to over-weight.
On the downward side of things, DSW (DSW) fell over 11% after weak earnings projections based on increased expectations of clearance items and costs associated with expanding its retail locations. This morning DSW was trading at $51.94, down $6.86.
Groupon, a local discount coupon e-retailer that connects consumers to merchants with daily local deals around the world. The Chicago based, two year old company went public on November 4th, 2011 and headed down a choppy road due to its controversial valuation procedures. In March 2012, they released revenue of $559.283 million, and has a market cap. of $6,496.73 million with 645.80 million shares outstanding.
Europe shrugs off the Greek vote and returns to Spain and Italy worries as the FTSEurofirst manages a slight gain of .3%. The Greek market looked as it should with banking shares jumping 13%.
The Spanish IBEX sank .9% and the Italian FTSEMIB dropped .8%. The biggest concern being that Spanish bank’s bad loans rose to 8.72% of its outstanding portfolio for April.
Microsoft and Barnes & Noble are to announce a strategic partnership to build a tablet/e-reader say sources at TechCrunch.
Commodities are mixed before the opening with crude and gold slightly down and Natural gas and silver in the green.
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 Europe, the Stoxx Europe gained 1% on Friday, putting the European benchmark into positive territory for the entire week. Asian markets also finished higher, up 0.5%, with the Nikkei average finishing barely above zero at 0.1%.
Facebook (FB) finally finished up 6.04% as they posted their first back to back gains since their IPO. Microsoft (MSFT) climbed 6.04% and International Business Machines (IBM) finished up 2.09% to lead the DOW gains. Stocks opened higher even as economic data showed that customers felt less upbeat about the economy than at the start of the month than in May. IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) jumped 4.73% as they won the bidding process to buy the London Metal Exchange. Finally, AIG rose 1.42% after the insurer said that it reduced outstanding support from the US government by $152 billion.
Happy Friday everyone and have a great weekend!
Thomas Doherty is an undergraduate at Villanova University majoring in Finance and Economics. Thomas@KeeneOnTheMarket.com
WTI crude futures were down 7 cents ,-0.08%, to $83.84 and gold futures were up $8.80 ,.54%, to $1,628.40.
Moody’s Investor Service Downgraded Nokia Corp.’s (NOK) credit rating to Baa3, a junk status, due to worse than expected earnings. Nokia was downgraded by Fitch Ratings and Standard and Poor’s in April. Nokia was trading at $2.47, up 12 cents ,5.11%.
American International Group (AIG) rose .84% after reducing its support from the U.S. government. The U.S. treasury still owns $30 billion of AIG’s common stock.
Gamestop (MVIS) fell -22.74% after they reported their sales of videogame hardware, software and accessories dropped -28% from a year ago. This fall is linked to the loss KOTM and Andrew mentioned on the blog and Bloomberg TV, respectively. Like Microsoft and Sony, Gamestop is faltering due to lower product sales as gamers await new systems to buy and delay their purchases until a later time.
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC’s (RBS) shares rose 8.12% after yesterday’s speech by Chancelor George Osborne that the Bank of England is preparing to support markets if needed after Sunday’s Greek presidential election.
David Cornes holds a degree in economics from the University of Montana.
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