YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: After four consecutive losing sessions,
European trading was uneventful during the early part of the session. However,
markets took off immediately after comments from European Central Bank
President Mario Draghi. The central bank's president
said officials are "ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the
euro." Following the statement, risk assets spiked and never looked back.
The risk rally contributed to a higher open in
The energy sector led the charge as the SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF (XLE 69.00, +1.91) advanced
nearly 3% while the materials and retail sectors lagged the broader market
gains.
Major financials were one of the main beneficiaries of
today's market advance. The SPDR Financial Select
Sector ETF (XLF 14.49, +0.22) was up over 1.5%. American Express (AXP 57.76, +1.71) was higher by 3% while
Citigroup (C 26.28, +0.49), and Bank of America (BAC 7.17, +0.10) advanced 2% and 1.4%
respectively.
Communication solutions provider MetroPCS (PCS 8.59, +2.31) surged 37%. The advance
came on the heels of a positive second quarter earnings report. In addition,
the company expects to launch 4G service before quarter's end. Sprint Nextel (S 4.05, +0.68) also posted a
considerable gain, climbing 20%. The firm's earnings beat expectations on
increased iPhone sales.
Zynga
(ZNGA 3.18, -1.90) was one of the weakest performers following a second quarter
loss and slowing revenue growth. Its shares fell almost 40%. The significant
weakness spilled over to Facebook (FB 26.85, -2.50) which receives 11% of
its revenues from the company. Facebook was down more than 6% ahead of its
after-hours earnings release.
Crude oil spent its entire floor session in positive territory, touching a
session high of $90.47 per barrel. It gave up some of its gains as the day
progressed, and settled with a 0.4% gain at $89.40.
Today's rally adversely impacted the dollar index which fell to near-term
support at 82.67 before rebounding to 82.85. The British pound was the
strongest performer against the dollar, up over 1.2% at 1.5685. The euro also
rallied against the greenback, posting a 1.1% advance to 1.2285.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 353,000, which is better
than the 381,000 that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by
Briefing.com. The latest tally is also down from the upwardly revised prior
week count of 388,000. As for continuing claims, they fell to about 3.287
million from 3.300 million.
Roughly 115 companies are set to report their results after-hours. Some notable
names include: Amazon
(AMZN 220.01, +2.96), Coinstar (CSTR 59.22, -0.05), Facebook
(FB 26.85, -2.50), and Starbucks
(SBUX 52.41, +2.00).
The busy earnings schedule continues before Friday's open with names like AON (AON 46.48, +0.34), Chevron (CVX 108.27, +2.21), and Merck (MRK 43.33, +0.71) set to report.
Crude oil spent its entire floor session in positive territory,
touching a session high of $90.47 per barrel moments after pit trade opened. It
gave up some of its gains as the day progressed and settled with a 0.4% gain at
$89.40 per barrel.
Natural gas popped to a pit session high of $3.13 per MMBtu
following better-than-expected inventory data that showed a build of 26 bcf when a build of 30 bcf was
anticipated. Moments later, it slid into the red to a session low of $3.02 per MMBtu. However, buyers stepped in and pushed prices back up
such that natural gas settled with a 1.0% gain at $3.10 per MMBtu.
Gold extended yesterday's gains following a slide by the dollar on renewed
hopes of monetary easing after ECB President Mario Draghi
stated that "sharing national sovereignty on EU level to come" and
that the ECB is "ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro."
The yellow metal climbed to a pit session high of $1620.00 per ounce and
despite briefly dipping into negative territory, it managed to settle 0.5%
higher at $1615.00 per ounce. Silver, on the other hand, lost steam after
brushing a floor session high of $27.72 per ounce and fell into the red as it
headed into afternoon pit action. It eventually settled for a 0.1% loss at
$27.44 per ounce.
Friday's economic data includes second quarter GDP at 8:30 AM ET and