US pre-open: Waiting on Bernanke

Date: Thursday 07 Jun 2012

The main US equity benchmarks are now being called to start the day roughly 0.6% higher. That ahead of this afternoon’s speech by Federal Reserve President Ben S.Bernanke and after a surprise interest rate cut –their first since 2008- by Chinese authorities.

That decision can only add to expectations for further action by economic authorities worldwide, although they are also a measure of the current degree of worry over the situation now unfolding in the Eurozone.

In fact, so potentially threatening has the situation become that Goldman Sachs’s chief economist, John Hatzius, now considers a new round of quantitative easing as being likely by as soon as the end of the month of June.

Back on the company front, company pension funding deficits are said to be at their largest since December of 2007, Marketwatch.com reports.

Best Buy’s chief executive, Richard Schulze, has just tendered his resignation, sending the company’s stock 6%lower.

Jobless claims in holding pattern

Initial weekly unemployment claims have fallen by 12,000 to 377,000 (Consensus: 389,000).

Treasuries rise again

10 year US Treasuries are moving slightly higher, by 4/32 dollars, with yields at 1.64%.

Front month West Texas crude futures are now up by 0.87% to the85.02 dollar per barrel mark in NYMEX trading.

AB

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