A 0.6% increase in wholesale inventories lifted the markets higher during the midday with the Dow rising 24 points to 12,485. Nasdaq gained 11 points to 2842.
On the upside
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn acquired additional shares of Navistar International (NYSE: NAV) to increase his stake to 11.87%.
Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage of Neonode (Nasdaq: NEON) with a Buy rating.
Shares of Zalicus (Nasdaq: ZLCS) continued climbing after a Seeking Alpha contributor wrote yesterday that the company was one of five biotechnology stocks poised for growth.
On the downside
TheStreet Ratings affirmed its Hold rating on US Steel (NYSE: X).
TheStreet Ratings reiterated its Hold with a ratings score of C on Exelon (NYSE: EXC).
Shares of Quicksilver Resources (NYSE: KWK) continued falling after TheStreet Ratings downgraded the company to a Sell rating yesterday.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 5 to 4 on the NYSE and by nearly 7 to 5 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks rose 3 points to 763.
Eric Pickles tells 'tatty' shopping parades how to succeed - BBC News
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has issued a set of guidelines to help "tatty" shopping parades in England compete with the High Street.
He urges small neighbourhood shops to "kick out the louts", set up "savvy" services and "restore local pride".
Labour branded his "shopping list for success" - which comes with no new money - "patronising" but it was welcomed by a leading trade body.
Retail guru Mary Portas has drawn up a £10m plan to revive the High Street.
But the Department for Communities and Local Government says it wants to reassure local convenience stores which employ 10 people or fewer that they have not been forgotten, describing them as "crucial" to the economy.
Local grocery shops, newsagents and cafes have been squeezed by the growth of out-of-town shopping centres and online retail, although are still growing at a faster rate than High Street stores, according to research quoted by the DCLG in a report.
'No-go zones'Mr Pickles said: "In the past too many neighbourhood shopping parades have been left to fade in memory and outlook.
“Start Quote
End Quote National Association of Convenience StoresThe government is giving long overdue credit to local shops and helping them by giving practical advice on how to work together and thrive”
"Convinced they can't compete with the mega stores and besieged by gangs of louts they have become tatty, no-go zones turning our beloved local convenience store into the local inconvenience.
"We've taken action to back local firms and small shops and today we are offering up ways to rescue run down shop parades by kicking out the louts, set up savvy services for shoppers and restoring the local pride in parades."
He said parades should be "thriving beacons of local business, home to the character of the neighbourhood community and the local shoppers' destination of choice".
The guide sets out government support available to local shops, such as the "Community right to bid", which is meant to make it easier for local people to take over "treasured" local assets faced with closure.
'Unhelpful'But Shadow Communities and Local Government minister Roberta Blackman-Woods, for Labour, said: "This is further gesture politics from the government to cover up their lack of an economic plan for the country and for High Streets.
"While shop owners are working hard to keep their businesses going, the government has done little to improve consumer confidence and get our economy moving again.
"Advice like 'Go the extra mile on service' is simply patronising and unhelpful."
But Mr Pickles' guidance was welcomed by the Association of Convenience Stores, which helped draw it up.
Chief Executive James Lowman said: "The government is giving long overdue credit to local shops and helping them by giving practical advice on how to work together and thrive."
He said Mr Pickles' department had made "great strides in its new National planning Policy Framework that will make it harder for big out-of-town stores to open up and destroy the diversity of local parades."
Ahead of the Bell: Wholesale Inventories - Yahoo Finance
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Businesses likely slowed their restocking of store shelves this year following a big jump in inventory building at the end of last year.
The Commerce Department will report on inventories for April on Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern time. Many economists were looking for another modest gain with analysts forecasting that sales at the wholesale level rose 0.4 percent, according to a survey by FactSet.
Businesses order more goods when they increase their stockpiles. That typically leads to more factory production and economic growth.
It would have taken roughly five weeks to exhaust all wholesale stockpiles at the March sales pace. That's considered a healthy time frame and suggests businesses will keep restocking to meet demand.
Inventories are expected to keep growing this year, though probably nowhere near the level seen at the end of last year.
Many businesses cut back on restocking last summer fearing that the economy was on the verge of another recession. When it became clear that it wasn't, they raced to rebuild stockpiles and keep pace with consumer demand.
In the first three months of this year, the economy grew at an annual rate of 1.9 percent. That gain was driven by the fastest growth in consumer spending since late 2010.
Consumers spent more partly in response to strong hiring. But hiring has slowed sharply over the past two months. In May, employers add just 69,000 jobs, the smallest increase in a year, and the unemployment rate edged up form 8.1 percent in April to 8.2 percent in March.
And wages have continued to lag as well. Sluggish job growth and weak pay raises threaten to drag on consumer spending. That would weaken growth. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.
Stockpiles at the wholesale level account for about 27 percent of total business inventories. Stockpiles held by retailers make up about one-third of the total. Manufacturing inventories represent about 40 percent of the total.
Constructive criticism: the week in architecture - The Guardian
Deserving tributes have been paid to writer Ray Bradbury, who died this week. Much has been written about the way his fiction expanded our imaginative worlds, to alien planets and future realms. Less remarked on were Bradbury's contributions to the real world – and specifically, to the field of architecture.
Beyond his daily fiction-writing regimen – his movies, plays, TV shows and so on – Bradbury found the time to not only weigh in on architectural matters but also take an active role in them. For better or worse, he was a key influence in two major urban trends of the past few decades: theme parks and shopping malls. The former came about through his friendship with Walt Disney. According to Bradbury, they simply bumped into each other on the street in Beverly Hills one day. With their shared interests in childhood nostalgia and futuristic utopianism, Bradbury and Disney made a natural connection, it seems. And, having been animated by a visit to the 1933 Chicago World's Fair as a 12-year-old, Bradbury leapt at Disney's invitation to consult on the 1964 World's Fair in New York. Ray scripted the US Pavilion's potted history of America movie, while Walt had a hand in several exhibits, including the first of his It's A Small World animatronic rides for the Pepsi Pavilion.
In fact, Bradbury could be thought of as an honorary "imagineer", who helped blend fantasy and entertainment into the design mix. He later consulted on Disney's grandiose Epcot vision, originally planned as a model city for 20,000 residents in Florida, and the two of them enthusiastically planned monorails for Los Angeles. After Disney's death in 1966, Bradbury still worked with the company. Epcot became more of a World's Fair-type exhibit, centred on the Buckminster Fuller-inspired Spaceship Earth dome, which Bradbury helped design and script.
From Disney imagineering to postmodern California shopping malls seems like a natural progression, but apparently it didn't happen that way. Rather, it happened via Bradbury's writings on urban design. Bradbury bemoaned the decline of American city centres in the 1970s, and the people who were letting it happen. Even in the 1950s, his fiction was dystopian; he envisaged future cities that became deserted after business hours, while everyone stayed indoors and watched TV. These were the same trends the New Urbanist movement was picking up on, though Bradbury's solution was rather different. In his 1991 book Yestermorrow: Obvious Answers to Impossible Futures, he outlined the concept of a "people machine" – a sort of enhanced shopping mall to revitalise the dying city centres.
"Malls are substitute cities," he said at the time, "substitutes for the possible imagination of mayors, city councilmen and other people who don't know what a city is while living right in the centre of one. So it is up to corporations, creative corporations, to recreate the city."
Bradbury's analyses of urban conditions tended towards the simplistic, it has to be said. The corporatisation of the public realm cannot be considered a unanimously good thing and, ironically, his favourite cityscape was the Latin quarter in Paris. He also complained that the profusion of homeless people was a result of insufficient medication. But, as with his fiction, his predictions proved accurate. Bradbury prophesied, for example, that LA's Century City mall would fail because it didn't have enough restaurants. And it did – until they added some restaurants.
Bradbury's prescription of giant malls as the cure to American urban decay was also broadly borne out. He was recruited as a consultant by architect Jon Jerde – now one of the world's leading mall designers – on some of his early projects, including the Glendale Galleria, the Westside Pavilion, and San Diego's outrageous Horton Plaza – a mall so exuberantly postmodern it makes your eyes hurt. It's imagineering in action. Not that they would have given Bradbury much succour. For him, the US dropped the technological baton decades ago, when they gave up the space race. The only architecture that would really have satisfied him, one suspects, is a permanent moon base, from which to launch manned expeditions to Mars. Perhaps that'll come true as well, but unfortunately Bradbury won't be around to see it.
Big blueprint … Renzo Piano's Landmark Tower in the Yongsan district of Seoul will be the world's second tallest building. Photograph: Renzo Piano Building Workshop On to the rest of the week's developments, and while Renzo Piano's Shard has been getting all the attention in the UK (look out for a Piano interview here next week), the Italian architect has another skyscraper in the works – and it's twice the height. This is the Landmark Tower, in the Yongsan district of Seoul, South Korea. Like the Shard, it's a slender, tapering, glass structure, though it's more curvaceous, and will mainly be office space inside, with a podium conference centre and an underground shopping complex. It also claims to feature a "light scoop" that transfers sunlight from the upper storeys down to lower levels. When completed, it will be the second tallest building in the world: 620 metres high, 111 storeys. It's even shardier than the Shard.
The Yongsan international business district is set to be something of a haven for well-known architects with big plans – or perhaps a playground. It's Seoul's equivalent of London's Docklands (except bigger). The former military base will soon be a forest of tall buildings, under a plan by Daniel Libeskind, and it looks like their designers are stumbling over themselves trying to outdo each other.
Piano's tower is the calm centrepiece, but other architects frantically at work there include Bjarke Ingels Group (whose interlocked twin towers look like a giant "#" – though "the Hashtag" is hardly the most poetic name for a skyscraper), MVRDV (whose similar scheme of linked twin towers, called The Cloud, was read by some as a crass parody of the World Trade Centre mid-explosion on 9/11), Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill (who brought you the Burj Khalifa – they call their two-tower scheme the Dancing Dragons), Murphy/Jahn, Coop Himmelblau, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Dominique Perrault and many others. And possibly trumping them all for pseudish descriptors, Libeskind himself, whose offering is a trio of Dancing Towers "inspired by the traditional Korean Buddhist dance known as Seung-Moo". It puts London's gripes into perspective, doesn't it?
Down to humbler concerns and another, very different haven for big name architects added a few more this week: Maggie's Centres. The pioneering cancer care charity has already enlisted the likes of Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Richard Rogers to design its domestically scaled centres in hospital grounds. This week it announced two more. Norman Foster is to design a Maggie's Centre at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, and leading US architect Steven Holl is designing one for Barts hospital in London. This could be Holl's first completed project in the UK, unless he finishes his Glasgow School of Art extension first. Holl is also giving the Royal Academy's annual architecture lecture on 25 June.
Behind the Curtain … an artist's impression of how the site of the newly-discovered Curtain theatre in Shoreditch, east London, might eventually look. Photograph: PA And finally, right down to earth, and under it, where this week the remains of Shakespeare's long-lost Curtain theatre were found. The fact that it was just off east London's Curtain Road, a stone's throw from the blue plaque declaring it to be around there, suggests it shouldn't have been too difficult to find. But this is still a landmark discovery for English literature – a third Shakespearean structure to add to the tourist map, alongside south London's Globe and Stratford. Remains of the Curtain's floor – paved with sheep's knuckle bones, a commendably sustainable and organic construction material – were discovered beneath a courtyard during construction in Shoreditch. The site could now be redesigned to incorporate the discovery.
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U.S. Wholesale Inventories Rise More Than Expected In April - RTT News
6/8/2012 10:18 AM ET
(RTTNews) - U.S. wholesale inventories increased by more than expected in April even as wholesale sales increased, according to figures released Friday by the Commerce Department.
Total inventories of merchant wholesalers were recorded at a seasonally adjusted level of $483.5 billion at the end of April, a 0.6 percent increase from revised March levels, which were also up slightly from initial reports.
Economists had expected wholesale inventories to increase by about 0.5 percent.
On a year-over-year basis, U.S. wholesale inventories were up 8.2 percent from April 2011 levels.
April also saw an increase in sales at the wholesale level, with the Commerce Department figures showing a 1.1 percent increase to a seasonally adjusted level of $415 billion, up 6.8 percent from April 2011 levels.
Despite the larger increase in sales than in inventories, the inventories-to-sales ratio held steady at 1.17 in April.
The increase in wholesale inventories was driven by a 1.1 percent increase in inventories durable goods, which more than offset a 0.1 percent decline in inventories of non-durable goods. The April increase in durable goods inventories is the strongest since May 2011.
Automotive wholesalers recorded a 1.7 percent increase in inventories, while professional equipment inventories rose 1.4 percent, paper inventories jumped 3.9 percent, machinery inventories climbed 2.4 percent and petroleum inventories advanced 2 percent.
Inventories of groceries, drugs and furniture posted declines in April.
On the sales side, sales of wholesale durable goods were up 0.1 percent, while sales of non-durable goods rose 1.9 percent.
Automotive sales recorded a 3.8 percent increase, while wholesale petroleum sales jumped 4.8 percent, the largest increase since April 2011.
Wholesale sales of furniture, metals, machinery, paper goods and groceries all fell notably for the month.
by RTT Staff Writer
For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com
Wholesale stockpiles grew 0.6% in April - AZCentral.com
WASHINGTON - -- U.S. wholesale businesses restocked faster in April, responding to a strong gain in sales.
The Commerce Department says stockpiles grew 0.6 percent at the wholesale level in April, double the March gain. Sales by wholesale businesses jumped 1.1 percent in April, nearly three times the March sales gain.
When businesses step up restocking, they order more goods. That generally leads to increased factory production and higher economic growth.
Stockpiles at the wholesale level stood at $483.5 billion in April. That's 25.6 percent above the post-recession low of $384.9 billion in September 2009.
Stocks trading higher on wholesale report - Des Moines Register
Stocks rose for the fourth day in a row on Friday, capping their best week so far this year.
It was a relief for investors after the big drops of the previous week.
The Dow finished 93.24 points higher, or three-quarters of a percent, at 12,554.20. It ended the week up almost 3.6%.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 10.67 points, or 0.81%, to close at 1,325.66. The Nasdaq composite rose 27.40 points, or 0.97%, to close at 2,858.42.
Stocks fell in morning trading, with the Dow Jones industrial average down almost 63 points. But they turned around after the government said that wholesale businesses restocked faster than analysts had expected.
The Commerce Department said U.S. wholesale stockpiles grew 0.6% in April. That's twice as fast as they grew in March and a sign that businesses are ordering enough goods to lead to increased factory production and sales. Investors had been braced for more sluggish growth.
Oil fell 72 cents to $84.10 per barrel. Sure, it was pushed down by long-term economic worries. But lower energy costs help consumers.
"If you had some doubts about an economic recovery, oil in the $80s is a lot better than oil at $110," said Jim Dunigan, managing executive of investments for PNC Wealth Management in Philadelphia. Oil traded just below $110 in late February.
Nine out of the ten industry groups in the S&P 500 rose. Only energy stocks declined, following energy prices lower.
Wal-Mart Stores ( WMT) was the biggest gainer in the Dow, up $2.35, or 3.6%, at $68.22. Other companies that depend heavily on a strong economy grew too, including Intel ( INTC), up 47 cents, or 1.8%, at $26.41, and General Electric ( GE), up 20 cents, or 1%, to $19.20. Home Depot ( HD) rose $1.11, or 2.2%, to $52.35.
Facebook ( FB) rose 79 cents, or 3%, to $27.10 after announcing an "app center" that will recommend new add-on software for users. Anything that boosts user interaction is likely to help it sell more ads, which has been a key concern for investors in its new stock, which debuted three weeks ago at $38.
Chesapeake Energy ( CHK) shareholders punished their directors and were rewarded by the market. The stock rose 51 cents, or 2.9%, to $18.36 after shareholder votes prompted the resignations of two directors at the company's annual meeting Friday. Earlier in the day the company said it will sell pipeline assets in three deals for a total of more than $4 billion in cash.
Navistar International ( NAV) rose $4.25, or 17.6%, to $28.36 after the activist investor Carl Icahn boosted his stake in the truck maker.
Markets fell in Asia. Shanghai's stock index lost a half-percent, its fifth day of losses. Japan's Nikkei fell 2.1%.
Chinese leaders have been showing signs of urgency ahead of May trade and industrial data due out this weekend that might be even weaker than earlier pessimistic forecasts. The Chinese government cut interest rates for the first time in four years and has reduced gasoline and diesel prices for the second time in a month.
Over the long run, that will put more money in the pockets of Chinese consumers. In the short run it's a sign that the government is worried about growth.
"That shows they're being proactive, but on the other hand, it also makes you wonder, what's the data is really like?" said Uri Landesman, president of Platinum Partners. "I'm wondering how bad the data's going to be. I'd be very surprised if it's good."
China is a key U.S. trade partner so its growth is important to U.S. companies. Its importance is magnified by the possibility that Europe's economy will go from slow growth to shrinkage, Landesman said.
Major European markets fell, although their declines were smaller after the U.S. inventory news came out. France's benchmark index lost 0.6%, Britain's and Germany's each dropped 0.2%.
Those losses came a day after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated there were no immediate plans to boost growth in the world's largest economy, wiping out gains made on China's surprise interest rate cut.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Stocks climb: Dow closes up 0.75% on wholesale report - Post-Crescent
U.S. stocks reversed course and climbed steadily Friday after the release of a government report showing that
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.75%, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index took bigger jumps, of 0.8% and 1%, respectively. The Dow settled at 12,554, gaining 93 points for the day.
Investors were relieved and pleased with the report that suggests second-quarter growth could be better than the 1.9% gain at an annual rate in the first quarter.
Investors initially were selling stock on continuing concerns about signs of slowing growth in the U.S. and China.
Shares of Facebook ( FB) closed 79 cents higher, or 3%, to $27.10. The stock is still down 29% since its initial public offering price of $38, and was down for the week.
The stock price boost comes a day after Facebook started rolling out its App Center to users. It's a place where people can find Facebook apps recommended to them based on their interests or apps that their friends like.
Investors also listened closely to President Obama's remarks on the economy at a press briefing at the White House Friday.
European markets, meanwhile, stemmed earlier losses but failed to finish the day in positive territory. Britain's FTSE 100 closed down 0.23% to 5,435. Germany's DAX lost 0.22% to 6,130 and France's CAC-40 fell 0.63% to 3,051.
Those losses came a day after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated there were no immediate plans to boost growth in the world's largest economy, wiping out gains made on China's surprise interest rate cut.
The Dow has risen for the past three days. But investors have their eyes on new monthly trade and industrial data due out this weekend in China, which could come in even weaker than analysts are forecasting.
The Chinese government cut interest rates for the first time in four years and has also reduced gasoline and diesel prices. Those are signs that its leaders feel more urgency ahead of the reports.
In an appearance before members of Congress, Bernanke avoided giving any signals about what the Fed might do in response to a slowdown in hiring. The 69,000 jobs created in May were the fewest in a year.
Francis Lun, managing director of Lyncean Holdings in Hong Kong, said markets were "slightly disappointed" that Bernanke had not said the Fed would extend its Treasury bond-buying program, known as quantitative easing. The program injects money into the financial system, lowering interest rates to spur lending and growth.
"The economy is slowing much faster than people expected," he said.
China has rolled out a series of measures to stimulate the economy after growth fell to a nearly three-year low of 8.1 % in the first quarter and April factory output grew at its slowest rate since the 2008 crisis. Private sector analysts expect this quarter's growth to fall further.
Investor concerns remained focused on Europe, where a lingering financial crisis has infected Spain and its banks.
Expectations are rising that Spain's leaders will have to seek an international bailout for banks, which credit agency Fitch estimates could reach 100 billion ($126 billion). Amid reports that Spain could ask for financial aid this weekend, the government on Friday said it would wait for results from independent reports on the financing needs of its banks. Those reports are due by June 21 at the latest.
Mainland Chinese shares lost ground, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index falling for a fifth straight trading day, shedding 0.5%, or 11.68 points, to 2,281.45, the lowest closing in more than two months.
Elsewhere in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 2.1% to close at 8,459.26. South Korea's Kospi dropped 0.7% to 1,835.64.
Benchmark oil for July delivery was down $2.59 to $82.24 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 20 cents to finish at $84.82 per barrel in New York.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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