Market News: Precision Castparts, Sprint, Freeport-McMoRan

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The stock markets in the United Stated rebounded today after suffering declines over the past few days last week. The equity markets were positively impacted by Berkshire Hathaway’s merger transaction with Precision Castparts.

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In an interview with Bloomberg, Mark Kepner, an equity trader at Themis Trading LLC commented, “China started it off with a 5 percent rally, there was another test of the S&P 200-day moving average, plus merger activity with Berkshire and PCP kind of gave the market an excuse to rally.”

Chinese equities recorded the biggest gain in one month driven by speculations that the government would accelerate the mergers of state-owned enterprises to improve economic growth.

Investors will monitor U.S. economic data including retail sales this week to determine the timing of the interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve. Last Friday, the jobs report increased the probability that the central bank would raise interest rates by September.

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Federal Reserve Stanley Fischer indicated that the low inflation remains a concern while the labor market is close to reaching a sweet spot.

“Employment has been rising pretty fast relative to previous performance, and yet inflation is very low. And the concern about this situation is not to move before we see inflation, as well as employment, returning to more normal levels,” said Fisher.

He emphasized that a “large part of the current inflation is temporary” and “will stabilize at some point” after the impact of cheaper oil and other raw materials disappears. “We are not going to be as low as we are forever,” he said.

U.S. Markets

  • Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) – 17,615.03 (+1.39%)
  • S&P 500- 2,104.12 (+1.28%)
  • NASDAQ- 5,101.80 (+1.16%)
  • Russell 2000- 1,221.27 (+1.19%)

European Markets

  • EURO STOXX 50 Price EUR- 3,674.94 (+1.02%)
  • FTSE 100 Index- 6,736.22 (+17.73%)
  • Deutsche Borse AG German Stock Index DAX- 11,604.78(+113.95%)

Asia-Pacific Markets

  • Nikkei 225- 20,808.69 (+0.41%)
  • Hong Kong Hang Seng Index- 24,521.12 (-0.13%)
  • Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index- 4,084.37 (+4.54%)

Stocks in Focus

The stock price of Precision Castparts surged more than 19% to $230.92 per share. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway agreed to buy Precision Castparts for $235 per share or $37.2 billion, a 21% premium to its closing price on Friday.

The stock price of Sprint increased nearly 14% after reporting quarterly earnings better than the expectations of Wall Street analysts. The company posted a net loss of $0.01 per share compared with the $0.08 per share expected by analysts. Zacks Equity Research recently recommended a Buy rating while FBR & Co issued an Outperform rating.

Freeport-McMoRan gained nearly 11% to $11.66 per share. The submitted a regulatory filing indicating its intention to offer common stock worth as much as $1 billion. The company said it will make the offering from time to time.

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