Wall Street Greek: Wall Street News 11-20-09

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Today's Wall Street news schedule highlights the earnings of Dell Computer, D.R. Horton, AnnTaylor and J.M. Smucker in the US. With an absence of economic data, overseas activity took some focus. The EU selected its first president and begins seeking its next ECB chief. The Bank of Japan weighed in with its own rate decision and raised concern about falling prices.

Wall Street News

Corporate News Drivers

Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) reported earnings last night and is down about 7% in early Wall Street trading. DELL is down due to its reporting weaker than expected Q3 revenue and earnings. The stock's hit this morning is largely due to Wall Street's surprise, since many of the company's peers, including Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and IBM (NYSE: IBM), reported a strong quarter on improved global technology spending. Excluding one-time items, Dell posted $0.23 per share against analysts' expectations for $0.28, based on Thomson Reuters data. Adding salt to its wound, Dell was also passed by Acer in market share, as the Taiwan based company moved to #2 in the world.

D.R. Horton (NYSE: DHI) shares are lower in morning Wall Street trade, as the homebuilder missed consensus estimates on both revenue and EPS lines. Revenue of $1.01 billion, down 42% from the prior year, compared against analysts' consensus for $1.11 billion, based on Thomson Reuters survey. DHI's loss per share narrowed versus the prior year, but at $0.73 still missed analysts' view for a $0.30 loss.

An FDA panel takes up a Medtronic's (NYSE: MDT) new epilepsy treatment. Friday's Wall Street EPS schedule includes reports from America's Car-Mart (Nasdaq: CRMT), AnnTaylor Stores (NYSE: ANN), D.R. Horton (NYSE: DHI), J.M. Smucker (NYSE: SJM), Johnson Outdoors (Nasdaq: JOUT), Kirkland's (Nasdaq: KIRK), Met-Pro (NYSE: MPR), Scorpion Offshore (SCORE.OL) and a few others.

Overseas News

The European Union (EU) extended its antitrust review deadline for Oracle's (Nasdaq: ORCL) acquisition of Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA) to January 27, 2010. Oh, and by the way, that conglomerate of nations across the pond also picked its first President, Belgian Herman van Rompuy. Jockeying is already under way to find the replacement for ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, for when he steps down in 2011. European shares were in decline at hour of publishing, with the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 off 0.66%.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided to leave its key rate unchanged at 0.1%. The BOJ announced that its economy was improving both due to exports and domestic gains on stimulus efforts. However, Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Friday that Japan is in deflation, while Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii expressed grave concern over falling prices. The NIKKEI 225 fell 0.54% on the day, and broader Asia declined as well.

Philly Fed President Plosser is in Singapore today, giving a speech on global interdependence, especially in regard to food and water. The World Economic Forum is meeting to discuss the global agenda.

In Washington, the Senate will meet Saturday to deliberate on whether to debate on health care reform or not. Yes, the Senate is meeting to decide whether to meet. Ah politics...