Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category

Some big names hit new 52 week highs today: F, MSFT, AUY

Posted by Michael on November 18th, 2009

tradersAll of the major indexes closed today’s session in the red, but that was not enough to keep some big name stocks from hitting new highs in today’s trading action.

Ford Motor (NYSE: F) hit a new 52 week high today of 9.14 before afternoon profit taking came in and pushed shares lower. The stock has been very strong lately, and recently was considered to be the stock of the year from the writers of CrossingWallStreet. Shares finished the day down slightly at $8.94, down 0.45%.

Technology giant Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) also rose to a new 52 week high today. Shares of the company hit a day today of $30.14. Shares of MSFT finished today trading session up 0.4% to $30.11, just three pennies off its new 52 week high.

Gold prices continue to rise, and Yamaha Gold (NYSE: AUY) has been benefiting from the recent gold rush, setting a new 52 week high earlier in the session at 13.49. After hitting another new high today, the profit takers came in and sold the stock off a bit, which ended the day slightly lower at $13.15, down 0.23%. Gold prices rose as high as 1146.5 but closed down 70 cents to 1,140.5.

What are your favorite stocks right now? Which stocks do you see rising to new highs in the near future?

You can read more from Michael on AOL’s Bloggingstocks

If you enjoyed this post, get all our posts with our Email Feed!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Posted in After the Bell, Energy, Gold, Good News, Technology Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments »

Oil hits $130 on weak U.S. dollar

Posted by Michael on May 21st, 2008

Oil prices have continued to move higher today, hitting a new record high of $130.47 as investors continue to push prices higher in reaction to the slumping American dollar.

Last week it had started to look as though the dollar was making a comeback, but that has changed, and now the dollar is once again dropping, and as a result oil prices are moving into new territory. The euro is moving higher, and is now sitting above $1.5750 in Asian trading.

To put things more in perspective as far as just how strong oil prices have been moving lately… today is the 11th time in the last 13 trading sessions that oil has hit an all time high, or record high closing price… or both.

The bottom line is that, unfortunately, if you were hoping to see some relief in your gasoline prices, don’t hold your breath. The way oil is moving we could be looking back at $4 gasoline as the “cheap days”. Let’s hope that is not the case.

You can read more from Michael on AOL’s Bloggingstocks

If you enjoyed this post, get all our posts with our Email Feed!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Posted in Bad News, Consumer Experience, Dollar, Energy, New Highs, Oil No Comments »

Inflation eases a bit in April

Posted by Michael on May 14th, 2008

Despite surging food prices, inflation was actually a bit lower in April than the 0.3% inflation that we saw back in March.

According to the Labor Department, inflation moved up 0.2% in April, which was slightly under the 0.3% inflation in March. Analysts had been expecting to see inflation rise by 0.3% again in April.

If you exclude food and energy costs, then you are left with a core inflation, which was really well behaved in April, only rising by 0.1% during the month. Analysts had been expecting to see core inflation growth of 0.2% for the month.

While it is good to see that inflation is not rising as rapidly as some had thought, you have to take into account the current run up in oil prices. With oil trading up close to $127 a barrel, inflation could be getting ready to really jump. Analysts are warning that the current record high oil prices have still not be felt at the consumer level yet, and their impact could be rather dramatic.

Looking at inflation for the year, overall inflation is now running at an annual rate of 3%, compared with the 4.1%  increase that we saw in all of 2007. The Federal Reserve, which has been slashing interest rates lately in an attempt to fight off a recession, has signaled that it would more than likely pause the rate cuts in order to fight off any unwanted inflation in the months to come. The next time the Fed meets will be the third week in June, and dont expect the April numbers to lead them to change their stance and cut rates. I am sure that everyone is still waiting for the other shoe to drop on the recent run up in energy prices.

You can find a pretty nice graph of CPI inflation since 2000 over on economistblog

You can read more from Michael on AOL’s Bloggingstocks

If you enjoyed this post, get all our posts with our Email Feed!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Posted in Consumer Experience, Economy, Energy, Federal Reserve, Good News, Oil No Comments »

$200 oil on the horizon?

Posted by Michael on May 6th, 2008

With oil prices moving as high as they have over the past year, many of you are probably wondering when will we see prices start to retreat? While the pain oil prices is causing at the pump is likely to have everyone wishing for a drop in oil prices, this may be something that is just not in the cards at this time.

There are a lot of reasons to believe that oil prices will continue to move higher, and according to Goldman Sachs, we could easily see prices move as high as $200 a barrel over the next two years.

The market was already trading higher today, but once the new analysis from Goldman came out, prices spiked even higher. Oil traded up as high as $122.73, and is currently trading at $121.89, up $ 1.92. At the current price, we have witnessed oil moving up pretty close to 100% over the past twelve months from the $62 a barrel it was trading at this time last year.

The US Department of Energy has also raised its estimate for the average cost of a barrel of oil this year. The EIA is now predicting that oil will average $110 a barrel in 2008, $9 higher than its previous estimate.

It’s always easier to grasp how much something is moving by seeing it visually, so let’s close with a current graph of oil prices…. as you can see, it’s been quite an impressive couple of months:

oil chart

You can read more from Michael on AOL’s Bloggingstocks

If you enjoyed this post, get all our posts with our Email Feed!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Posted in Energy, Forecasts, Oil No Comments »

Oil prices jump on this week’s inventory report

Posted by Michael on April 9th, 2008

Oil prices have continued their recent surge following this week’s inventory report from the Energy Department. Oil has jumped $2.65 to $111.15, and are very close to hitting its historic all time high of $111.80. Prices moved up as high as $111.43 immediately following today’s report.

The market had been pretty flat for most of this morning, in anticipation of today’s report. What we have seen is a drop of oil inventories of 3.2 million barrels, and a decline of gasoline inventories of 3.4 million barrels. What is weighing the most of the market is the gasoline inventories, as the nation is already dealing with record high gasoline prices, that are only predicted to go up even higher as we progress into the heavy demand summer driving months.

While the nation is dealing with the record high gasoline prices, it is expected that for the first time in 20 years, Americans will actually demand less gasoline this summer. This is definitely being viewed as a direct result of just how high prices have hit lately.

For a better illustration of just how strong oil prices have been lately, let’s close by taking a current look at an oil graph:

oil chart

So what are your thoughts? Are you going to let current gasoline prices impact your summer travel plans? Or will you continue to pay the high prices in order to keep your vacation plans alive?

You can read more from Michael on AOL’s Bloggingstocks

If you enjoyed this post, get all our posts with our Email Feed!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Posted in Consumer Experience, Dollar, Energy, Forecasts, New Highs, Oil, Recession No Comments »
« Older Entries