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Hess Corp. said late Wednesday that Chairman Mark Williams has retired effective immediately due to health reasons. To succeed Williams, the board chose James Quigley, former chief executive of Deloitte and current board member, as chairman. Shares of Hess rose 0.2% to $47 in after-hours activity.
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Oil futures finished higher on Wednesday, rising for a third session in a row. After falling in the immediate wake of weekly U.S. government data showing a 10.4 million-barrel climb in crude inventories, prices turned higher, buoyed by the fall in domestic output and expectations for further production declines. “The fundamentals remain poor, but sentiment is a bit more focused upon the future, for now,” said Richard Hastings, macro strategist at Seaport Global Securities. April West Texas Intermediate crude rose 26 cents, or 0.8%, to settle at $34.66 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, holding ground at the highest levels since early January.
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Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon running for the Republican presidential nomination, will skip Thursday’s scheduled GOP debate, he said Wednesday. Carson has not won any states in this year’s primary season and continues to poll low compared to his rivals. He said in a statement he does not see a political path forward after Super Tuesday. In his statement he does not say he is suspending his campaign.
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Gold futures climbed Wednesday to settle at their highest level in nearly three weeks. The U.S. stock market struggled for direction despite upbeat U.S. data on jobs in the private sector, helping to support prices for the metal. The market awaited cues on gold’s next move in the aftermath of monthly U.S. jobs data due out Friday. April gold rose $11, or 0.9%, to settle at $1,241.80 an ounce. That marked the highest settlement since Feb. 11, according to FactSet data.
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Don’t read a market by its cover, as Wednesday’s decline in the major market index’s belied positive market internal reading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index were both down 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was shedding 0.4%, in midday trade. But the number of advancing stocks outnumbered declining stocks by about a 15 to 14 score on the NYSE and a 13 to 11 margin on the Nasdaq exchange. Separately, the NYSE’s Arms Index, which is volume-weighted measure of market breadth, dipped below 0.5, which usually only occurs during broad and sharp market rallies. The last two times the NYSE’s Arms Index closed below 0.50 was Feb. 22, when the S&P 500 shot up 1.4%, and Dec. 23, when the S&P 500 climbed 1.2%.
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Shares of American Water Works Co. shot up to a record high in active trade Wednesday, after S&P Dow Jones Indices said it was adding the water services company to the S&P 500 Index . The stock climbed 4.1% in midday trade. Volume just before noon Eastern was 7 million shares, or more than five times the full-day average over the past 30 days, according to FactSet. The intraday high of $68.87 was the highest seen since the company went public in April 2008. The stock will replace Consol Energy Inc. in S&P’s benchmark index of large-capitalization companies, effective after the close of trading on Thursday. Consol is being pushed down to the S&P MidCap 400 , replacing Solera Holdings Inc. .
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The government of Saudi Arabia has asked banks to provide it with a loan of up to $10 billion, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources. An invitation sent to banks to discuss the loan didn’t specify size, but sources said it could be around $10 billion or more, the report said. The Saudi finance ministry and central bank didn’t respond to requests for comment after hours on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The alleged request from the world’s largest oil exporter comes as a rout in crude prices takes a toll on the finances of major producing nations.
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The government of Saudi Arabia has asked banks to provide it with a loan of up to $10 billion, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources. An invitation sent to banks to discuss the loan didn’t specify size, but sources said it could be around $10 billion or more, the report said. The Saudi finance ministry and central bank didn’t respond to requests for comment after hours on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The alleged request from the world’s largest oil exporter comes as a rout in crude prices takes a toll on the finances of major producing nations.
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Oil futures reversed course Wednesday to trade higher after the latest weekly data from the U.S. government. The report showed a hefty 10.4 million-barrel increase in crude supplies but also revealed that domestic output edged lower. Total U.S. crude output fell by 25,000 barrels to stand at 9.077 million barrels a day, the Energy Information Administration said. April West Texas Intermediate oil was up 48 cents, or 1.3%, to $34.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was trading around $34.30 ahead of the supply data and dropped to as low as $33.63 after them, before climbing back up again. Oil’s price move “looks like a classic case of sell-the-rumour, buy-the-news type of a reaction,” said Fawad Razaqzada, technical analyst at Forex.com and City Index. He said a supply build of this magnitude was already reported by the API last night and we are in a ‘risk on’ environment right now.
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Abercrombie & Fitch Co.’s stock pulled a sharp U-turn in active morning trade Wednesday, to trade down 1% after being up as much as 7.9% within minutes of the opening bell. The stock’s initial jump, to a 16-month high in intraday trade, came after apparel retailer reported better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter earnings, and the first year-over-year rise in same-store sales since the quarter ended April 2012. On the conference call with analysts following results, Chief Financial Officer Joanne Crevoiserat said temporary closures of Hollister stores for remodeling, as well as the negative effects of a strengthening dollar, is expected to have “a disproportionate adverse impact” on same-store sales for the fiscal second quarter, according to a transcript of the call provided by FactSet. Volume in the stock about one hour after the open was 6.4 million shares, or more than double the full-day average over the past 30 days, according to FactSet. The stock was still up 14% over the past three months, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF has lost 2.1% and the S&P 500 has declined 5.2% over the same time.
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