Morning Journal--Who loses when interest rates are low?

News on Stocks in Our Portfolios

 

MasterCard (MA): Q3 EPS of $6.17 beats by $0.24. Revenue of $1.9B (+5% Y/Y) misses by $40M.

Murphy Oil (MUR): Q3 EPS of $1.17 misses by $0.02. Revenue of $7.12B (-1.3% Y/Y) beats by $40M.

Western Gas Partners (WES): Q3 EPS of $0.33 misses by $0.09. Revenue of $219M (+0.7% Y/Y) beats by $3M.

Automatic Data Processing (ADP): Q3 EPS of $0.62 in-line. Revenue of $2.6B (+5% Y/Y) in-line.

(TEVA): Q3 EPS of $1.28 beats by $0.03. Revenue of $4.97B (+14% Y/Y) misses by $100M.

Suncor Energy (SU): Q3 EPS of C$1.01. Operating profit (-27% Y/Y) to C$1.3B. The board lowered Capex by C$850M to C$6.65B.

Target (TGT) Oct same-store sales: +2.4%. Total sales +3% to $4.98B. Shares -1.2% premarket.

Economics

   This Week’s Data

            The October Chicago PMI came in at 49.9 versus expectations of 51.0.

            http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/10/chicago-pmi-activity-idled.html

            Weekly jobless claims fell 9,000 versus estimates of a 3,000 decline.

            http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/11/weekly-initial-unemployment-claims.html

            The October ADP private payroll report saw a 158,000 job increase versus forecast of 155,000.  However, ADP completely changed its computational methodology so I am unsure of the significance of this data.

            http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/11/adp-private-employment-increased-158000.html

            Third quarter initial nonfarm productivity came in at +1.9% versus expectations of +2.0% and the second quarter final number of +2.2%.

   Other

            Who loses when the Fed keeps interest rates low (medium):

            http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-30/who-loses-when-fed-keeps-interest-rates-low-.html

           

Politics

  Domestic

A new power for government---civil forfeiture (read this and weep):

http://www.ij.org/massachusetts-civil-forfeiture