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Updated from 9:36 a.m. EST

Positive remarks from the Federal Reserve chairman boosted stocks Wednesday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached yet another new intraday record.

About an hour in to trading, the Dow was up 61 points, or 0.5%, at 12,716, having touched an all-time high of 12,720.47 earlier. Of the Dow’s 30 components, 24 were in positive territory, led by gains of 1.6% in Caterpillar (CAT) and Verizon (VZ) .

The S&P 500 was adding 9 points, or 0.6%, at 1453. The Nasdaq Composite was ahead by 24 points, or 1%, to 2484.

During his address to the Senate Banking Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank is comfortable with interest rates and that some tentative signs of stabilization have recently appeared in the housing market.

“Inflation pressures appear to have abated somewhat,” Bernanke said in his prepared testimony, before adding that the “monthly data are noisy, however, and it will consequently be some time before we can be confident that underlying inflation is moderating as anticipated.”

Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist with Spencer Clarke LLC, said that Bernanke’s speech is exactly what the markets were looking for.

“His outlook includes solid growth in 2007 along with diminishing inflation concerns,” said Sheldon. “He did highlight that housing will be a drag for some time, but that sector is starting to stabilize. It’s what the markets wanted to hear.”

Bernanke will continue his Congressional testimony on Thursday when he addresses the House of Representatives.

U.S. equities got a nice boost Tuesday as talk of a takeover for Alcoa (AA) and an upgrade of GM (GM) helped spur buying. The Dow posted a triple-digit gain to 12,654.85, and the Nasdaq gained 9.50 points, or 0.39%, to 2459.88.

Before the opening bell, the Commerce Department said U.S. retail sales were unexpectedly flat last month, compared with a 0.9% rise in December. Economists expected a 0.3% increase. Excluding autos, January sales rose 0.3%, also less than anticipated.

Meanwhile, Treasury prices were on the rise. The 10-year note was up 16/32 in price, yielding 4.75%, and the 30-year bond was higher by 29/32 and yielding 4.84%. That action suggests the bond market is seeing less of a chance for rate hikes anytime soon.

On the corporate side, automaker DaimlerChrysler (DCX) announced a restructuring plan that will see it terminate roughly 13,000 jobs. Earlier, the company said fourth-quarter earnings fell 40% from a year earlier due to an operating loss out of its Chrysler Group. Shares were rising by $2.61, or 4.1%, to $67.06.

Among earnings, soft-drink giant and Dow component Coca-Cola (KO) posted fourth-quarter adjusted profits of 52 cents a share on revenue of $5.93 billion. Both numbers topped analysts’ consensus. Coca-Cola was off by 31 cents, or 0.6%, to $47.90.

Farm-equipment maker Deere (DE) got past Wall Street’s fiscal first-quarter estimates and said its second quarter and full year should be in line with the current forecasts. Deere shares were jumping by $7.03, or 6.9%, to $109.70.

Retailer Jones Apparel (JNY) swung to a fourth-quarter loss of $269.5 million, or $2.51 a share, compared with a year-ago profit of $55.7 million, or 48 cents a share. Excluding items, Jones earned 53 cents a share and beat the Thomson First Call consensus of 46 cents a share. The stock was off 3 cents, or 0.1%, to $34.13.

Crude futures eased following the latest weekly inventory report from the Energy Department. Lately, the near-month contract was down 58 cents at $58.48 a barrel. Natural gas was rising 4 cents to $7.41 per million British thermal units.

Last week, crude inventories decreased by 600,000 barrels. Distillate supplies fell by 3 million barrels, while gasoline stocks slipped by only 2 million barrels.

Metals prices firmed, with gold gaining $7.70 to $676.20 an ounce and silver higher by 17 cents at $14.09 an ounce.

Overseas, London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.3% at 6399, and Frankfurt’s Xetra DAX was adding 0.8% to 6949. Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 0.7% to 17,752. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.4% to 20,210.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

The Tel Aviv 100 index, which tracks the largest companies on Israel’s exchange, crossed the much-anticipated 1000 level for the first time Wednesday, completing a 5.5% climb since the beginning of the year.

Share increases across the board were fueled by a host of bullish corporate and economic news.

Earlier this week, Standard and Poor’s raised its outlook on Israel’s debt from negative to stable based on “improved economic and fiscal resilience to external shocks.” That followed similar upbeat outlooks and credit upgrades by both Fitch and Moody’s.

Also adding to a red-hot trading environment was a note by Morgan Stanley, which said it expects 5% GDP growth in Israel in 2007 and an even higher growth rate in 2008. The estimates top the Bank of Israel’s previous estimate of a 4.5% expansion this year.

On the corporate front, Teva Pharmaceutical’s (TEVA) in-line earnings outlook and solid sales guidance for 2007, along with news reports of a possible acquisition of Israel’s Retalix (RTLX) by VeriFone (PAY) , helped the overall bullishness. Retalix surged 7%.

Still, since positive momentum has been dominating the Tel Aviv indices for a while now, analysts and investors keep asking themselves whether it can continue for much longer. The Tel Aviv 100 index rose by more than 50% in the last two years.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 7:03 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.