Second day in a row the market didnt fluctuate around unch!

State Street today released the Investor Confidence Index. Global Investor Confidence decreased by 17.5 points to 58.2, lowest level since State Street started maintaining the data in 1999, from a revised September level of 75.7. The steepest decline being from North America.



Fed is continuting its efforts to do everything at its disposal to revive the money markets. Today Fed has announced a purchase plan to buy $600 billion of money market mutual funds' assets that have been hit with redemptions by investors. A money fund mainly buys the highest rated debt (Commercial Paper) which matures in under 13 months. In current situation, the money market fund could not sell the debt paper they own to meet the redemptions. This step by Fed would limit the redemptions by the investors and hopefully would stop the fire sale of assets.

Kirk Kerkorian, a phamous investor, is seeling off his stake in F.. He had bought about 140M shares of F at an average price of 7.20, and had sold 7.3M shares at an average price of 2.43. Assuming he sells his remaining stake at teh same price he would have to take up 600M in losses. :) .. 600M!!! fuck!! anyhow, the point that Kerk is tryin to make is taht F has very dim growth prospects going forward. I on the hand have invested in ford, and waiting for teh price to hit 3.00.

Market was down abour 230 points today, and Dow is just over 9000.. I guess investors now are dscounting weak earnigns more than the credit market problems. Infact, the credit market has started to show some signs of improvemtn. TED spreads are coming down, Libor is off from its peak, CP market is improving, CDS spreads of the companies are narrowing.. Said that, I dont think that marks the begniing of the good times. Banks still are not willing to extend credit to corporates, earnings across sectors are still weak, global recession chances are still looming, consumer confidence is making a new low..

Highlights of todays earnings"
AAPL reported earnings of 1.26 cents for the third Q, on revenues of 7.9 Bn. the consensus was 1.11 cents and revenues of 8.05 Bn. Though on the faec of it, it might seem that AAPL has beat the estimates, AAPL is reputed to give a conservative guidance and later beat the estimates.

Yahoo reported 9 censt on 1.33 Bn of revenues. inline with the estimates.

CAT (barometer for the industrial growth) reported 1.39 cents on 12.15 B of revenues. Missed the estimates of 1.43 on 12.43 Bn revenues.

Schlumberger (SLB) reported third quarter earnings of $1.29 per share on revenue of $7.26 billion. The consensus earnings estimate was $1.26 per share on revenue of $7.02 billion for the quarter. But again, with oil back at 70 levels, the drililng activity would be limited.

Intel (INTC) reported third quarter earnings of $0.35 per share on revenue of $10.22 billion. The consensus earnings estimate was $0.34 per share on revenue of $10.26 billion for the quarter. Semi conductor sector is BAD!