While you were sleeping: Oil gains, Wall Street rises, Madoff gets 150 years

Tuesday 30th June 2009

Crude oil climbed almost 4% after Royal Dutch Shell Plc shut an oil field in Nigeria because of an attack by the country’s main militant group.

Shell closed its Estuary field near the Forcados export terminal, curbing output from Africa’s biggest producer of oil.

Crude oil for August delivery rose 3.6% to US$71.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and is jumped 45% in the second quarter, the largest quarterly gain in almost a decade.

Oil companies were among gainers on Wall Street. Exxon Mobil Corp. rose 2.2% to US$70.58 and Chevron Corp. gained 1.4% to US$66.88.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.1% to 8529.38 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 advanced 0.9% to 927.23. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3% to 1844.06.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, fell 1.4% to 25.56, reaching below its level before Lehman Brothers collapsed in September.

Energy logistics group Teppco Partners LP jumped 5% to US$30.12 after Enterprise Products Partners agreed to buy the company for US$3.3 billion.

Microsoft Corp. rose 2.2% to US$23.86 after Deutsche Bank raised its share-price target to US$30 on expectations of a strong uptake for its Windows 7 operating system.

Alcoa Inc. fell 3% to US$10.44 and was the biggest decliner on the Dow after FBR Capital Markets cut the stock to ‘underperform,’ saying there was an oversupply in the aluminium market.

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren said the US economy may resume growing in the second half of the year though the jobless rate probably won’t peak until early in 2010.

The US economy will “start being positive in the second half,” he said in Brussels.

Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years for perpetrating a Ponzi scheme that may have swindled investors out of US$65 billion, making it the biggest such fraud on record.

Cheers rose up in the Manhattan federal court after US District Judge Denny Chin imposed the sentence on Madoff, the 71-year-old financier who will live out his days behind bars.

“I don’t ask for any forgiveness,” Madoff told the court. He pleaded guilty to securities fraud, perjury, money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, investment adviser fraud, false statements, false filings to the SEC and theft from an employee benefit plan.

Steve Jobs returned to his job as chief executive of Apple Inc. after taking medical leave in January which included a liver transplant. A spokesman told Bloomberg Jobs is at work a few days a week and working at home the rest of the time.

Apple’s stock was little changed at US$142.35.

Copper rose to a two-week high as inventories monitored by the London Metal Exchange fell 1.1% to 267,300 tonnes, the 37th daily decline.

Copper futures for September delivery rose 0.7% to US$2.326 a pound on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold futures for August delivery slipped 20 cents to US$940.80 an ounce in New York.

Stocks rose in Europe after a European Commission survey showed economic sentiment in the region rose for a third straight month, stoking optimism the economic slump may be easing.

The Commission said the worst of the slump may be behind the region. Economic sentiment rose more than expected to 73.3 points this month from 70.2 in May.

The economic sentiment indicator has picked up from a low of 64.6 points in March.

European Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia warned that recovery is likely to be mild with the jobless rate expected to worsen from the 9.2% level it reached in April.

Inflation expectations 12 months ahead among households fell to a new low of -9 points raising the spectre of deflation in the region.

The US dollar and the yen fell after the more upbeat surveys from Europe and after stocks gained on Wall Street, stoking investor appetite for higher yielding, or riskier assets.

The dollar weakened to $1.4076 per euro from $1.4056 while the yen slipped to 135.12 per euro from 133.85. The greenback rose to 96.01 yen from 95.18.

Stocks in Europe rose after the economic surveys, with the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index climbing 1.7% to 208.03 and heading for its biggest quarterly gain since 1999.

Royal Dutch Shell rose 1.8% and BP Plc rose 2% as the price of crude oil gained. Deutsche Telekom rose 2.5% after Bloomberg reported that Vodafone Group Plc is weighing making a bid for the German company’s T-Mobile wireless unit in the UK Vodafone rose 1.2%.

Lloyds Banking Group rose 6.1% after Goldman Sachs Group raised its rating on the lender to ‘conviction buy.’

The UK’s FTSE 100 climbed 1.3% to 4294.03 and Germany’s DAX 30 jumped 2.3% to 4885.09. France’s CAC 40 rose 2% to 3193.68.

Businesswire.co.nz

Comments from our readers

No comments yet