(MENAFN- ProactiveInvestors) Wall Street made a steady enough start to the week with key benchmarks giving up just a few points in early deals – despite it being another bad day for oil and gas stocks.
Crude prices fell another 4% on Monday with West Texas Intermediary below US$46.50 and Brent poised just above US$48.
It comes after Goldman Sachs dealt the latest blow to investor sentiment with its latest bearish view for oil which predicts the price of the black stuff will fall further down to US$42 in the next three months.
It also claimed that a sustained low of about US$40 per barrel would be necessary to flush out higher cost higher cost crude suppliers in the USA.
As Wall Street’s energy sector lost about 1.5% more broadly there were other reasons to be more cheerful – including the apparent prospect of economic stimulus in Europe.
Media reports speculated the ECB was planning a programme of quantitative easing. Sentiment broadly speaking was lifted by the possible new source of potential liquidity.
The Dow Jones was down around 40 points 0.24% at 17694 while the S&P 500 fell 0.7% to 2030 and the NASDAQ was 0.4% lower at 4686.
NPS Pharma advanced 8% to US$45.38 after UK drug maker Shire agreed a US$5.3bn US$46 per share takeover.
It comes after Shire fended off a US$54bn takeover by America’s AbbVie in October – now Shire is turning predator to boost its own medicine cabinet.
Elsewhere in the sector AmerisourceBergen edged higher in early deals following the news of a US$2.5bn move into the veterinary medicine business via the acquisition of MWI Veterinary Supply.
Lululemon’s share chart assumed a warrior pose pointing upwards with a near 10% rise after saying revenues would be better than expected strong holiday trading.
The Canadian fitness clothes firm expects to report sales of up to $600mln for the last three months of 2014 versus prior estimates of $570mln to $585mln.
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.