While you were sleeping: Stocks slide, US jobless claims fall; Playboy may be sold

Friday 13th November 2009

Stocks fell on Wall Street, paced by oil companies such as Exxon Mobil after Energy Department figures showed rising stockpiles, driving down the price of crude oil.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6% to 10230.27 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 declined 0.7% from a 13-month high to 1091.16. The Nasdaq Composite shed 0.5% to 2156.42.

Exxon fell 1.1% to US$72.09 and Chevron declined 1.3% to US$77.52. Southwestern Energy Corp. declined 4.8% to US$42.57.

3Com Corp. soared 32% to US$7.49 on Hewlett-Packard Co. offer to acquire the company for US$ 2.7 billion in a challenge to Cisco Systems dominance in the computer networking market.

Advanced Micro Devices jumped 22% to US$6.51 after Intel Corp. agreed to pay US$1.25 billion to settle a four-year legal dispute with AMD, which had maintained Intel offered discounts to customers to freeze out its rival.

Intel rose 0.1% to US$19.84.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. rose 0.5% to US$53.25 after the world’s largest retailer reported third quarter per-share earnings of 84 cents a share, beating estimates, as it reduced inventory. Still, the department store chain said sales in the fourth quarter would be “flat.”

Crude oil fell after U.S. Energy Department figures showed larger-than-expected stockpiles. Supploes of crude rose by 1.76 million barrels to 337.7 million last week, according to the department.

Crude oil for December delivery fell 2.7% to US$77.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price of crude oil has soared 73% this year.

Copper for December delivery fell as the U.S. dollar strengthened, dropping 80 U.S. cents to US$2.9580 a pound in New York.

Gold for December delivery declined 80 cents to US$1,113.80 an ounce, retreating from a record high on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

U.S. jobless claims eased last week, underpinning optimism that the world’s biggest economy is in recovery.

Initial unemployment claims fell by 12,000 to 502,000 last week, the lowest in 10 months, according to the Labor Department.

Playboy Enterprises Inc., publisher of the men’s magazine, soared 27% to US$3.62 after Bloomberg reported it is in talks to sell itself to Iconix Brand Group. The report, which cited two people close to the situation, said Iconix had looked over Playboy’s books though a deal wasn’t certain.

The U.S. dollar gained as weakening stocks discouraged investors from seeking higher-yielding, or riskier, assets in other currencies.

The dollar rose to US$1.4867 per euro from US$1.4987. The greenback strengthened to 90.44 yen from 89.87. The yen gained to 134.45 per euro, from 134.69.

U.S. Treasury Secretary told members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group the region needs “market-oriented exchange rates in line with economic fundamentals” to foster new growth.

Stocks in Europe were mixed, with U.K. phone company BT Group climbing 3.7% after raising its outlook for the full year. British Airways jumped 7.5% amid it is in talks for a US$7 billion merger with Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espana.

The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index rose 0.2% to 246.61. Among national benchmarks, the U.K.’s FTSE 100 rose 0.2% to 5276.50, Germany’s DAX 30 fell 0.1% to 5663.96 and France’s CAC 40 declined 0.2% to 3808.07.

Luxury car maker Porsche SE reported a 4.4 billion euro loss in the year ended July 31 compared to an 8.6 billion euro profit a year ago after it wrote down the value of options on shares in Volkswagon AG following its failed takeover bid.

A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S sank 5.3% after the world’s biggest container shipper posted a bigger-than-expected loss.

Businesswire.co.nz

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