The Republicans
The long road ahead
John McCain faces a variety of pitfalls
JOHN MCCAIN clinched the presidential nomination of the Republican Party long ago, but only last week, on Thursday June 12th, did his last remaining rival bow out. On that day Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican who had opposed the Iraq war, finally called off his own run for the presidency. But Mr Paul and the voters he excited with his small-government message are not yet out of Mr McCain’s hair.
Long after Mr McCain mathematically clinched the nomination significant numbers of Mr Paul’s supporters continued to show up at primaries: he won 14% of the vote in New Mexico, and 17% in South Dakota, on June 3rd. Mr Paul’s book, “The Revolution: A Manifesto”, has become a surprise bestseller, suggesting that he has hit a nerve among some Republicans. And, troubling for Mr McCain, Mr Paul has declined to endorse his rival, preferring to say nice things about Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia, who has become the small Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate.
It does not help Mr McCain that the Republican brand is, for now, unloved. The president remains unpopular—his approval rating is one of the lowest since modern polling began. Just 16% of those polled say that the country is on the right track. Those calling themselves Democrats outnumber Republicans by 37% to 28%.
The Libertarians are likely to have a marginal influence in November’s election. But Mr Barr could possibly be a factor in some Republican states. In North Carolina, for example, two polls with Mr Barr included have shown that Barack Obama, the Democrats’ candidate, is now just two or three points behind Mr McCain. The state went to Mr Bush by 12 points in 2004. Mr Barr could also cause headaches in the libertarian western states already sliding from red to purple.
In general, as with any candidate, Mr McCain must find a way to please his party’s stalwart supporters, while also reaching out to independents. But his room to manoeuvre is unusually tight. The Republican Party has several “bases”, and courting them all can be tricky. Reminding religious conservatives of his long anti-abortion record could turn off moderates, a clear majority of Americans, who support Roe v Wade. To economic and business conservatives Mr McCain promises growth through low taxes. But he also worries them with his occasional business-bashing rhetoric, and he is suspect for having opposed Mr Bush’s 2001 tax cuts before embracing them recently. He has one strong base, national-security conservatives who admire his steadfastness on Iraq. But whereas Americans do not want to lose the war there, polls show them thinking it has not been worth its cost. Colin Powell, George Bush’s secretary of state when the war was launched, would not rule out a vote for Mr Obama in a press conference on June 13th.
The vice-presidential pick is a big decision for Mr McCain. One favourite is Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota. Mr Pawlenty is an economic conservative with a blue-collar background, known for popularising the phrase “Sam’s Club Republicans” (poorer voters who nonetheless prefer tax cuts to big government). He has won two elections in a Democratic state. A bolder choice would be Bobby Jindal, the Catholic and Indian-American governor of Louisiana, who is just 37 years old. But Mr McCain may need someone with experience of economic policy or management, as voters grow increasingly concerned about the economy. For this reason, the names of Rob Portman, a former trade representative, and Meg Whitman, the former boss of eBay, have been floated. But picking any one of them is risky. Choosing a steadfast conservative would make it easier for Mr Obama to paint him as running for Mr Bush’s third term.
Mr McCain is perhaps the only candidate from his party who would have a decent chance of winning. But he must be reasonably error-free himself and hope for Mr Obama to stumble. Some recent opinion polls show him to be five to seven percentage points behind his Democratic rival. Those numbers could widen as the Democratic Party heals its Obama-Clinton wounds and as the economic mood darkens. Even good news from Iraq, which obviously could bolster Mr McCain, could make Americans all the more eager to get out. Mr McCain is a tough character, but the road ahead will be a challenging one.
Britain's economy
King's cure
The Bank of England signals that a sharp slowdown will curb inflation
THE City had been expecting a rise in British inflation when official figures were released on Tuesday June 17th, but the increase was bigger than anticipated. Consumer prices rose by 3.3% in the year to May, driven up from 3.0% in April in particular by higher food prices (which jumped by 8.7%), with further upward impetus coming from household-energy bills. The inflation rate of 3.3%, the highest since July 1992, was sufficiently far away from the government’s 2.0% target, which the Bank of England is charged to meet, to trigger a public letter from Mervyn King, the central bank’s governor.
If the scale of the surge in inflation caught the City by surprise, the real revelation was what Mr King had to say to Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the exchequer. The governor is obliged to write such a letter to Britain’s finance minister if inflation strays from the target by more than a percentage point. Mr King had to explain why the overshoot has occurred, and—more to the point—how he and his fellow rate-setters on the bank’s monetary-policy committee (MPC) intend putting matters right. Would the governor signal higher interest rates as the markets have been expecting? Or would he dampen those expectations?
The City swiftly interpreted Mr King’s message as dovish. In one sense this was rather odd since the governor had more bad news to impart. When the Bank of England last published its forecasts for the economy, a month ago, they showed consumer-price inflation rising to 3.7% by the end of 2008 and staying close to that rate in early 2009. In his letter, the governor raised this gloomy prediction still further, saying that inflation was likely to rise above 4% in the second half of this year, as a result of further rises in energy costs over the past month.
Mr King blamed the surge on inflation on global factors, pointing out that higher food and energy costs accounted for almost all of the 1.2 percentage points increase in consumer-price inflation since December, when it stood at 2.1%. But he said that there were good reasons to expect the period of above-target inflation to be temporary since there “there is not a generalised rise in prices and wages caused by rapid growth in the amount of money spent in the economy”. Provided that oil and commodity prices stabilised, inflation should begin to fall back to the 2% target after peaking around the end of 2008.
The question that had the City on tenterhooks was whether Mr King might indicate the need for higher interest rates. Mr King’s letter seemed to imply that the bank still thought that they were at the right level, as the MPC sought to juggle the two risks of persistent higher inflation and a recession. The governor said that a slowdown was already in train and that it would dampen increases in prices and wages.
Understandably, Mr King’s neutral message won favour with Mr Darling, since the last thing Gordon Brown’s beleaguered government needs is an over-zealous central bank driving the economy into recession. In his reply the chancellor stressed the “global nature of the rise in inflation” and drew attention to the fact that consumer prices were rising even faster in the euro area and the United States, by 3.7% and 4.2% respectively. He said that “faced with the recent sustained commodity-price shocks in oil and food, the rise in inflation has been extremely moderate compared with the behaviour of the economy in the 1970s and 1980s”.
Whether the Labour government and the central bank will continue to sing in harmony in future months remains uncertain. The real worry for the MPC is that inflationary expectations have come adrift from the 2.0% target. The bank’s own survey, published on June 12th, showed that the public’s median expectation of inflation over the next 12 months has increased from 3.3% in February to 4.3% in May, the highest since the poll started in 1999.
This is a deeply worrying development for an inflation-targeting bank, since it suggests a loss of credibility that can become self-fulfilling as wage negotiators and price-setters assume a return to higher inflation. On the face of it, it warrants a rise in the policy rate to show that the central bank is resolute about getting inflation back in the box. The MPC may still need to administer that rap on the knuckles—and nowhere would the pain be felt more than in Downing Street, by the prime minister who made the Bank of England independent to set interest rates back in 1997.
Commentary by Alexandre Marinis
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Sometimes when a politician changes his mind it's a sign of strength.
No one would mistake Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's recent reversals for anything other than an acknowledgement that he is a man in retreat. That's what a sudden and massive loss of public support will do to a guy.
Take his weekly television and radio address of June 8, in which he urged Alfonso Cano, the new leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to hand over all the guerrilla group's hostages, some of them held for more than 10 years.
This is the same Chavez who has embraced and encouraged FARC, a group that most of the world considers a terrorist organization with a side business in drug trafficking. But there was Chavez, saying ``the guerrilla war is history`` and ``at this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place.''
Just a few days earlier, Chavez backed off on a new national intelligence law, which would have turned Venezuela into the next Cuba. The most reprehensible aspect of the law would oblige every Venezuelan to cooperate with the country's intelligence service and police or risk prison terms of two to six years.
The law was decried by human-rights groups, the press, the Catholic Church and political opposition. In a rare moment of clarity, Chavez called the new law ``an indefensible error.''
There's more. About two months ago, Chavez reversed course on a new education plan that would have made the schools into the equivalent of the propaganda arm of Chavez's government. Outraged parents took to the streets of Caracas, the capital, carrying signs that read: ``Don't mess up with our kids.''
Monopoly Game
In another volte-face in late May, Chavez dropped a $200,000 fee levied on all privately held television stations for every hour they spent broadcasting images generated by the national state-owned Venezolana de Television, or VTV. VTV holds a de facto monopoly on the coverage of official events and meetings of the president's United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Other television crews aren't invited to or allowed in such events.
All this backpedaling in such a short period of time is far from coincidental. No one should take it as a sign that Chavez has finally realized he has been mistaken on so many issues.
Chalk it up, instead, to a plunge in popularity that only George W. Bush could surpass. In the past 18 months, the number of Venezuelans approving of Chavez's administration sank more than 20 percentage points, to about 40 percent of the population, according to polls by Hinterlaces and Keller y Asociados.
Hunger Pangs
The reasons for the decline shouldn't be a shock to anyone, least of all Chavez. Thanks to misguided and flawed economic policies, Venezuela's annual consumer-price inflation skyrocketed to 31.4 percent in May, the highest among the 79 economies tracked by Bloomberg. As for growth, Venezuela's gross domestic product rose at a 4.8 percent annual rate in the first quarter, about half the average yearly gain since mid-2003.
Even though Venezuela is the biggest oil producer in the Americas, the country has experienced widespread food shortages and long lines to buy milk and other basic staples as price controls undermined market incentives.
And if Chavez thought he was currying public favor by backing FARC, guess again. More than 70 percent of Venezuelans reject Chavez's association with a group they consider a terrorist organization, Hinterlaces polls show.
In November, Venezuelans will elect new governors and mayors. Chavez's allies control 22 of the 24 states in the country and about 70 percent of all the municipalities. Political analysts estimate the elections might give the opposition control of seven to 11 provinces and many more municipalities.
Life Term
Last year, Chavez lost a referendum that would have given him extraordinary powers and put an end to presidential-term limits. His allies plan to introduce a similar referendum before his term expires in 2013. In essence, losing clout in the November elections might jeopardize Chavez's true plan -- to figure out a way to stay in power for as long as he lives.
Chavez, a former army lieutenant colonel and graduate of the nation's top military academy, may well know one of Sun Tzu's lessons of combat, which some readers might remember from the 1987 hit movie ``Wall Street'': ``If your enemy is superior, evade him.''
Chavez knows he's up against a superior foe -- the common sense of Venezuela's voters. Expect to see a lot more Chavez evasions in the next few months.
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's semi-annual talks with Chinese officials will focus on energy and the environment as a rising yuan eases the exchange- rate tensions that marred past meetings.
With the yuan at 6.89, up 20 percent versus the dollar since a peg was abandoned in 2005, Paulson and Vice Premier Wang Qishan will sign a 10-year accord at the end of the talks. They may also announce the start of negotiations for a bilateral investment treaty, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The shift in focus represents an effort by Paulson to create a venue for continuing talks once he and President George W. Bush leave office on Jan. 20.
``Focusing on energy and the environment is part of the strategy to make this dialogue last beyond this administration,'' said Nicholas Lardy, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. ``Paulson is dialing back on the currency issue in part because he's had some success.''
The Treasury chief opened the meetings today in Annapolis, Maryland, saying he anticipated ``robust'' discussions, and repeated his advocacy of ``open'' markets to help China balance its economy. Chinese growth has been spurred by exports, giving the nation record trade surpluses. Both nations are challenged by rising energy and food prices, Paulson noted.
`Substantial Progress'
Wang said China has already made ``substantial progress'' in reducing its trade imbalance with the U.S. and in overhauling its exchange-rate policy. He flagged American economic troubles, indicating Chinese officials want an ``in-depth discussion of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis,'' according to a translator's rendition of his remarks.
``It takes time to resolve'' some problems, Wang said. ``We must take into consideration the reality of China, the level of development of China and the ability of China to cope with the changes.''
Chinese officials on the eve of the meetings signed 30 business deals valued at more than $13.6 billion, with firms including Ford Motor Co. and Oracle Corp.
The so-called Strategic Economic Dialogue gathering features seven U.S. cabinet members, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Chinese central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan.
Clinton Officials
Two former U.S. trade representatives, Charlene Barshefsky and Mickey Kantor, who served under President Bill Clinton, criticized today the talks as unwieldy and ineffective.
``You can't put 16 people in a room with an agenda that has any reality to it,'' Kantor said at a seminar in Beijing, urging narrower talks by smaller groups.
The U.S. ``has no idea what it wants,'' Barshefsky said.
Negotiations on an investment treaty follow 41 such deals with other countries, though none with an economy that is close to the size of China's.
``We would welcome a comprehensive investment agreement,'' said Myron Brilliant, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview yesterday.
China's exchange rate was the focal point of the first talks as the U.S. Congress pushed as many as 27 bills aimed at curbing the American trade gap with the Asian nation. Lawmakers claimed that an artificially cheap yuan benefited Chinese exports.
Faster Gains
Since then, Chinese officials have allowed the yuan to appreciate at a faster pace; the currency advanced 13 percent since December 2006, compared with a 5.7 percent gain in the 18 months to the start of the first SED talks. The trade gap has also stopped widening, with the shortfall easing to $75 billion in the first four months of 2008 from $76 billion a year before.
``The currency issue is pretty much off the table,'' said Donald Straszheim, who monitors Chinese economic issues as vice chairman of Roth Capital Partners, in Newport Beach, California. ``The currency appreciation has clearly helped everyone concerned.''
Legislators have held off on proposals forcing China to adopt a market-set exchange rate, while officials have lauded the yuan's advance.
``The accelerated pace of appreciation of the renminbi since October is significant and welcome, and we hope it will continue,'' Alan Holmer, the Treasury's top China negotiator, said last week in Washington. The yuan is also known as the renminbi.
Dollar Slide
The dollar's 14 percent slide against the currencies of major U.S. trading partners has also diminished the appetite to push for further declines against the yuan. The decline threatens to push up consumer prices in the U.S. at a time when consumers are hurting from record energy costs and falling home values.
Paulson is pushing China to lift price controls on domestic fuels to help alleviate the surge in oil prices worldwide. China should learn from the U.S. experience in the 1970s, when oil price restrictions were imposed, he said June 10.
``China, by setting price controls on fuel, is facing similar consequences today -- as can be seen by persistent gasoline and diesel shortages throughout the country,'' he said.
China's role as the world's fastest growing major economy has exacerbated its pollution. The country burns coal to generate 78 percent of its electricity. China's emissions will more than double by 2030, according to an estimate by the International Energy Agency.
China's Emissions
The country has fallen behind its own schedule to cut emissions by 20 percent between 2006 and 2010. It has pledged to use hydropower, nuclear energy and biomass fuels to help cut 950 million metric tons of the emissions by 2010, according to former top economic planner Ma Kai.
The next U.S. administration may intensify the pressure, as the presumptive nominees of both major political parties plan to pursue emissions cuts in the U.S. Senator Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat, advocates an 80 percent reduction from 1990 levels by mid-century. John McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona, wants a 60 percent cut.
The 10-year energy accord will include cooperation between China and U.S. on carbon-credit trading, Zhu Guangyao, an assistant finance minister, said on June 6.
By Ladane Nasseri and Matthew Brown
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Kuwait followed Saudi Arabia in saying crude oil prices are too high as evidence mounts that energy costs are restraining growth and accelerating inflation.
``I think it's high,'' Kuwait Finance Minister Mustafa Al- Shimali said in an interview in Isfahan, Iran, today. A reasonable oil price would be ``more or less $100,'' he said.
Crude oil for July delivery fell 50 cents to $134.11 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10:59 a.m., after touching a record $139.89 yesterday.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, has said the surging price of the commodity is ``unjustified'' and will host a meeting of producers and consumers in the coastal city of Jeddah on June 22 to help stabilize prices. Saudi Arabia will increase oil output by 200,000 barrels a day next month, King Abdullah told United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on June 15, according to a UN spokesman.
Oil prices fell 2.7 percent last week as Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi began to organize the meeting between producers, major industrial consuming nations and banks. State-owned Saudi Aramco said June 13 that it would start pumping oil from its 500,000 barrel-a-day Khursaniyah field within a month, a project that's been delayed since December.
``I would like to see these prices go down and in parallel also have the price of goods we import go down,'' Kuwait's al- Shimali said.
Kuwait's Inflation
Kuwaiti inflation accelerated to a record 10.1 percent in February as the cost of housing soared. Inflation rates have risen above 10 percent in five of the six Gulf Cooperation states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, this year.
Kuwait pumped 2.59 million barrels a day last month, according to Bloomberg estimates, trailing behind Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia said it will produce 9.7 million barrels of crude a day next month, according to the UN's Ki-Moon. That represents a 450,000 barrel-a-day increase from the amount it pumped during May, according to Bloomberg estimates.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries doesn't have an official price target for crude oil, though officials from the group's 13 member nations have repeatedly said prices are too high. The group kept official production quotas steady at its last three meetings in December, February and March.
Iran, OPEC's second-largest producer, objects to an increase by Saudi Arabia without prior consultation with other OPEC members.
Iran's Objections
``Any increase in oil production should be validated in this body's ministerial meeting,'' Iran's OPEC governor, Mohammad Ali Khatibi, said on the state television Web site. ``If Saudi Arabia undertakes to raise output unilaterally, it will be a wrong action.''
The Jeddah meeting will be attended by energy ministers from producing nations, including Kuwait's Mohammed Al-Olaim, as well as representatives from importing countries, such as U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, German Economy Minister Michael Glos and French Energy and Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo.
``It is apparent that in this meeting, consumers will talk about the increase of oil production rather than other issues, while producers believe that there is no shortage in the oil market,'' Iran's Khatibi said.
OPEC President Chakib Khelil, speaking in a June 12 interview in Algiers, ruled out the possibility of an official production increase from OPEC before the group's next meeting in September, rejecting U.S. arguments that supply and demand, rather than speculation, is behind the surge in prices.
Oil futures prices averaged over 200 days surpassed $100 a barrel for the first time today on the New York Mercantile Exchange, an indication of the durability of a rally threatening global economic growth. The so-called 200-day moving average indicator crossed $70 on Nov. 7, $80 on Feb. 8 and $90 on April 23.
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Prices paid to U.S. producers rose more than forecast in May as fuel and food costs climbed.
The 1.4 percent jump was the biggest gain since November and followed a 0.2 percent increase in April, the Labor Department said today in Washington. So-called core prices, which exclude energy and food, increased 0.2 percent.
Companies are paying more for energy and raw materials, which erodes profits and makes it more likely they'll be forced to raise prices. The report reinforces Federal Reserve policy makers' concern that inflation pressures are picking up.
``It's going to further compress companies' profits,'' said Russell Price, senior economist at H&R Block Financial Advisors in Detroit, who had forecast a 1.1 percent increase in producer prices. ``We do have further inflationary pressures ahead as some energy prices will filter through.''
After the report, Treasuries stayed higher and the dollar remained little changed against the euro. The 10-year note yield was down 7 basis points to 4.20 percent at 9:03 a.m. in New York. The dollar traded at $1.5488 per euro from $1.5477 yesterday.
A separate report from the Commerce Department showed housing starts fell 3.3 percent in May to a 975,000 pace, less than anticipated. Building permits, a sign of future construction, fell 1.3 percent to a 969,000 rate.
Prices paid to factories, farmers and other producers were forecast to rise 1 percent, according to the median of 73 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from gains of 0.6 percent to 1.6 percent.
Core Prices
Core prices were projected to rise 0.2 percent, according to the survey median.
Producers paid 7.2 percent more for goods from May 2007, compared with a 6.5 percent gain in the 12 months ended in April. Excluding food and energy, the increase was 3 percent from a year earlier, the same as in the prior month.
Food was 0.8 percent more costly, after no change the previous month. Pork prices increased by the most since 1999.
Producers paid 9.3 percent more for gasoline, the biggest increase since November, and diesel fuel gained 11.2 percent, the report showed. Natural gas costs were up 5.7 percent from the previous month.
The wholesale-price report is based on figures for the Tuesday of the week that includes the 13th of the month. On that basis, crude oil cost about $12 a barrel more in May on the New York Mercantile Exchange than the prior month. Oil futures prices reached a record $139.89 a barrel yesterday.
Raw Materials Prices
Costs of intermediate goods, those used in earlier stages of production, rose 2.9 percent, after a 0.9 percent gain in April. They increased 12.6 percent from a year ago.
Excluding food and energy, intermediate prices gained 2 percent.
Prices for raw materials, or so-called crude goods, increased 6.7 percent, after a 3.2 percent rise the prior month.
``Thus far, the pass-through of high raw materials costs to the prices of most other products and to domestic labor costs has been limited, in part because of softening domestic demand,'' Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in a speech this month. ``However, the continuation of this pattern is not guaranteed and future developments in this regard will bear close attention.''
Today's report showed passenger car prices fell 1 percent and light trucks dropped 0.9 percent.
Capital, Consumer Goods
The report showed prices for capital equipment increased 0.1 percent. Consumer goods prices rose 1.8 percent. Civilian aircraft prices were up 1.1 percent, the most since August 2004.
Producer prices are one of three monthly inflation gauges reported by the Labor Department. Consumer prices rose 0.6 percent in May, more than forecast and the most since November, while import costs rose less than projected by economists.
Some companies are trying to recoup expenses. Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc., the beverage company spun off by Cadbury Schweppes Plc in April, said first-quarter profit rose after it raised prices to counter soaring ingredient and fuel costs.
``Our industry, and the economy as a whole, continue to face significant headwinds especially in the area of higher commodities and fuel costs,'' Chief Executive Officer Larry Young said on a conference call this month.
Others are finding it tough to keep up with the jump in costs. FedEx Corp., the second-largest U.S. package-shipping company, in May cut its profit forecast for the second time this year after surging fuel prices raised costs by at least $100 million more than estimated. FedEx had already boosted its fuel surcharge on express shipments in early May.
``While we have dynamic fuel surcharges in place, they cannot keep pace in the short-term with rapidly rising fuel prices,'' Chief Financial Officer Alan Graf said in a statement last month.
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Most U.S. stocks fell for the first time in four days as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicted banks will have to raise $65 billion in new capital to cover losses, overshadowing takeover speculation in the energy industry.
Zions Bancorporation tumbled the most in eight years after the Salt Lake City-based lender predicted more losses from bad loans and Goldman said it remains ``cautious'' on regional banks. Boeing Co. and Deere & Co. retreated on an unexpected drop in industrial production, while D.R. Horton Inc. led homebuilders lower on a bigger-than-forecast decrease in housing starts. Marathon Oil Corp. climbed to the highest level in a month as Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said the fourth-largest U.S. oil company may be acquired.
More than six stocks fell for every five that advanced on the New York Stock Exchange. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slipped 0.58 point to 1,359.56 at 11:22 a.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 28.01 to 12,241.07. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.37 to 2,475.15.
Stocks opened higher after Goldman's earnings spurred speculation that the worst is over for credit losses stemming from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. Today's retreat threatened to snap a three day streak of gains for the S&P 500, its longest of the month.
Zions, the Salt Lake City-based lender with operations in 10 Western U.S. states, tumbled 9.4 percent to $33.66. ``Weakness'' in residential construction and land values in the Southwest will harm loans and is ``expected to persist into 2009,'' the lender said in a presentation attached to a regulatory filing today.
Goldman's Call
Goldman said investors should sell regional banks such as Marshall & Ilsley Corp., on its ``conviction sell'' list, and buy trust banks such as Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and State Street Corp., on the firm's ``conviction buy'' list, analysts led by New York-based Richard Ramsden wrote in a report.
Marshall & Ilsley, Wisconsin's biggest bank, fell 4.8 percent to $18.29, a seven-year low.
The analysts said U.S. banks may need to raise $65 billion in additional capital as losses and writedowns continue into the first quarter of 2009. Declining home prices, expected to continue falling through the year, are driving the deterioration in the credit markets, Goldman said.
Bank of America Corp. lost 44 cents to 429.88. JPMorgan Chase & Co. retreated 18 cents to $39.76.
Boeing, the world's second-largest commercial airplane maker, lost 47 cents to $74.55. Deere, the largest maker of tractors, slid $1.21 to $79.39.
Production in factories, mines and utilities declined 0.2 percent last month after dropping 0.7 percent in April, the Fed reported. Capacity utilization, which measures the proportion of plants in use, fell to 79.4, the lowest since September 2005, when Hurricane Katrina disrupted manufacturing and oil production along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Housing Slump
D.R. Horton led declines in 14 of 15 homebuilders in S&P indexes. Housing starts fell 3.3 percent to a 975,000 pace from a revised 1.008 million in April, the Commerce Department said. The reading was below economists' forecasts and the lowest since March 1991. Building permits, a sign of future construction, fell 1.3 percent to a 969,000 rate.
Marathon added 2.8 percent to $52.93, its seventh straight advance. The market is undervaluing the company's production operations, wrote Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Neil McMahon. The company ``could be on the radar screen as an acquisition target,'' Bernstein said.
Goldman advanced 47 cents to $182.56. Net income declined to $2.09 billion, or $4.58 a share, in the three months ended May 30 from $2.33 billion, or $4.93, a year earlier, the New York-based company said. The average estimate of 19 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was for $3.42 a share.
Infinera, Adobe
Infinera Corp. sank $4.13 to $9.68. The maker of high-speed network systems forecast 2008 revenue below its previous projection. Adjusted revenue for the year will rise 10 percent from fiscal 2007 invoiced shipments of $309.3 million, the company said. Infinera previously projected 25 percent growth on the same basis.
Adobe Systems Inc. slipped 43 cents to $42.42 after the world's biggest maker of design software forecast third-quarter revenue that may miss some analysts' estimates. Sales will be $855 million to $885 million, the company said. That compares with the average analyst estimate of $872 million, according to Bloomberg data.
Most U.S. stocks gained for a third day yesterday as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s results fueled a rally in financial companies and analysts recommended buying shares of Apple Inc.
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