DJI - NEW YORK, March 6 (Reuters) - Wall
Street mostly edged higher on Wednesday, with the Dow hitting another record,
helped by a private payroll survey that bodes well for the monthly jobs report
due at the week's end.
Improved labor market data from the
private sector sparked the positive tone and boosted confidence for the U.S.
government's payroll report on Friday. The data from payrolls processor ADP
followed similarly strong reads on housing and the services sector, reports
that have contributed to lifting the Dow to historic levels and pushing up the
S&P 500 to just 1.5 percent below its own record close.
Continued support from the Federal
Reserve and equity valuations that are considered attractive compared with
other asset classes have also pushed shares higher, and while some continue to
call for a pullback at recent levels, those factors staying in place could keep
the positive momentum intact.
"When you reach a record high,
it triggers introspection about whether we're overvalued, but I don't expect a
pullback because the reasons we've climbed are still in place," said David
Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial in Boston. "The
market has the opportunity to move higher until there's evidence those factors
will die out."
Relative to junk bonds, the earnings
yield on the S&P 500 - the inverse of the P/E ratio and used for valuation
comparisons with bonds - is around 7.5 percent - above the yield to maturity on
junk bonds, which is around 6.5 percent, data showed, indicating that stocks
have a better value than the riskiest corporate bonds.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 42.47 points, or 0.30 percent, to 14,296.24, another record closing high.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index edged up 1.67 points, or 0.11 percent, to 1,541.46. The Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 1.77 points, or 0.05 percent, to close at 3,222.36.
The positive catalyst for
Wednesday's advance came from signs of improvement on the jobs front. The
slowly healing labor market has been one of the weaker spots of the recovery,
but data on Wednesday showed private-sector hiring was surprisingly strong in
February as companies added 198,000 employees.
It was an early look at the labor market
two days ahead of the U.S. government's closely watched non-farm payrolls
report on Friday, which is expected to show the economy created 160,000 jobs
last month while the unemployment rate held at 7.9 percent.
"If payrolls come in under
150,000, that could knock the market off stride, but if we got anything north
of 175,000, that would give another boost to the market in the short
term," said Joy, who helps oversee $675 billion.
Brent Crude Oil - NEW YORK, March 6 (Reuters) - Brent crude futures settled 55 cents lower at $111.06 per barrel on Wednesday after U.S. government data showed domestic crude inventories rose much more than forecast.
CBOT Soybean - Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures were lower on profit-taking and unwinding of bull spreads ahead of the
release on Friday of USDA's March supply/demand and crop production reports, traders said.
* Pressure also stemmed from improving crop weather in the U.S. and in Argentina and on a firm dollar, they said.
· Position-squaring was beginning to surface ahead of the release at 11:00 a.m. CST (1700 GMT) on Friday of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's March supply/demand and world crop production reports.
· An average of analysts' estimates pegged the 2012/13 U.S. ending soybean stocks at 120 million bushels, below the USDA's forecast in February for 125 million.
· The analyst average for global ending soybean stocks for 2012/13 was 59.448 million tonnes, below the USDA February outlook for 60.120 million.
· An average of analysts' estimates for Brazil's 2012/13 soybean production was 83.145 million tonnes, below the USDA February forecast for 83.5 million. The analyst average for Argentine soy production was 50.871 million tonnes, below the USDA February outlook for 53.0 million.
· Crop forecaster Lanworth on Wednesday trimmed is forecast for Brazilian soy production to 80.8 million tonnes from its previous outlook for 81.0 million and lowered its outlook for Argentine soy production to 49.4 million from its previous forecast for 49.6 million.
· Drought-relieving and crop-friendly snow fell on Tuesday from southern Minnesota and eastern Iowa into the Ohio River Valley, leaving a blanket of 5 to 10 inches of wet snow, an agricultural meteorologist said on Wednesday. Additional moisture is expected in some areas by the weekend.
· Minimal showers are seen for Argentina until the weekend, according to Commodity Weather Group (CWG). "The European model is then much wetter than the American model. Our forecast leans toward the wetter outlook and has increased coverage to more than half the soybean belt," said CWG's meteorologist Joel Widenor. "This could help to limit stress to less than 20 percent for late soybean development," he said.
· Soybean spot basis bids were steady to sharply higher at processors, elevators and river terminals around the U.S. Midwest on Wednesday as farmer offerings remained seasonally light and demand from end-users remained strong, dealers said.
BMD CPO - KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 (Reuters) -
Malaysian palm oil futures ended flat in thin volume on Wednesday, with
investors digesting price forecasts by top analysts at the industry's biggest
annual gathering to determine their strategies.
The Bursa Malaysia palm oil
conference in the Malaysian capital saw main speakers James Fry, the chairman
of commodities consultancy LMC International, and Dorab Mistry, head of trading
at India's leading speciality chemicals group Godrej Industries present price outlooks for palm oil.
"We should see a short-term
bottom at 2,300 ringgit. Most market players are still digesting the price
forecasts," said a dealer with a foreign commodities brokerage in
Malaysia, referring to Mistry's forecast that prices should range between 2,300
and 2,500 ringgit until the end of April.
The benchmark May contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange closed flat at 2,400 ringgit ($774)
per tonne. Prices were caught in a 2,389-2,413 ringgit range.
Total traded volume was thin, at
20,945 lots of 25 tonnes each, below the average 25,000 lots.
Mistry posted a bearish price
outlook on improving global supplies of oilseeds and palm oil in the later part
of the year, saying prices could fall to 2,200 ringgit or even lower after
mid-April.
Fry, who spoke earlier just before
the market's midday close, said palm oil's low prices had encouraged its
greater use in biofuel, and that could help ease record stocks. He also said
prices may climb to 2,625 ringgit by mid-year.
High stocks in Malaysia, the world's
No.2 palm oil producer, have caused prices to tumble more than 20 percent in
2012.
A Reuters poll of traders, analysts
and government officials at the palm oil forum showed that prices could fall an
average of 18.2 percent to 2,420 ringgit per tonne this year as stockpiles
continue to weigh.
European imports of palm oil are
heading for record highs of 6.4 million tonnes between Oct. 2012 and Sept.
2013, Hamburg-based analyst Oil World said on Tuesday, taking up the slack from
lower supplies of soyoil and sunflower oil.
In other markets, Brent futures rose
towards $112 a barrel on Wednesday, tracking a rally in equity markets and
expectations of a revival in demand growth following positive economic data
from the United States and China.
In competing vegetable oil markets,
U.S. soyoil for May delivery was almost flat in late Asian trade. The most-active September soybean oil
contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange inched up
0.1 percent.
Regional Equities - BANGKOK, March 6 (Reuters) -
Southeast Asian stocks rose on Wednesday as a record close on Wall Street
lifted appetite for riskier assets and gains in large caps such as PT
Telekomunikasi Indonesia led Indonesia to all-time highs.
Indonesia's Jakarta Composite Index snapped two days of losses to close at 4,824.68, above its record close of
4,811.61 hit on March 1.
Investors bought large-caps such as
PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia,
which jumped almost 6 percent. In a statement released after market hours, the
company said its 2012 net income rose 17.2 percent, due to strong revenue
growth.
The Philippine Composite Index climbed 1.8 percent to 6,835.21, its new all-time closing high, with
conglomerate Alliance Global Group Inc up nearly 5 percent.
It is now Asia's best performing
bourse with a year-to-date gain of 17.6 percent.
In Bangkok, the main SET index was up 0.65 percent at 1,559.35, the highest close since January 1994. However,
turnover was relatively weak, falling to 68 percent from a monthly average.
The MSCI's broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained nearly 1 percent while the
MSCI's index of Southeast Asia was up 1.2 percent.
