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Monday, April 07, 2008

Halliburton, WellDynamics take on StatoilHydro work

Halliburton Co. and its joint venture company, WellDynamics Inc., have secured about $900 million in contracts from Norwegian oil company StatoilHydro for work in the North Sea.

Houston-based Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) and Spring-based WellDynamics will provide completion equipment and services, tubing conveyed perforating services and SmartWell completion technology for oil and gas fields on the Norwegian continental shelf.

Work is expected to start in September and last up to nine years if all option periods are exercised.

WellDynamics is a joint venture company of Halliburton International Inc. and Shell Technology Ventures Fund 1 BV (managed by Kenda Capital BV).

Stocks advance as deal talk increases

NEW YORK - Wall Street advanced Monday following reports of potential corporate deals — including news that Washington Mutual Inc. might get a $5 billion investment from private equity firms.

Washington Mutual, the nation's largest thrift, is in talks with buyout shop TPG Inc. and other investors about selling a stake in itself in return for cash, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company, which has suffered big losses tied to subprime mortgages, would become the latest U.S. financial institution to reach such a deal.

Ahead of the first-quarter earnings season — which begins with aluminum company Alcoa Inc.'s results after the market closes Monday — the report was an auspicious sign. Investors are growing more optimistic that stocks and the companies that issue them may be starting to recover from a long slump due to tight credit and a sluggish economy.

"Overall, I'm getting the sense here that the Street is starting to focus on fundamentals and the timing of a potential recovery in the economy, and trying to move past the credit crisis," said Craig Peckham, market strategist at Jefferies & Co.

That's not to say the market volatility seen over the past several months is over. Peckham said Monday's calm, upbeat trading is a "rather predictable lull" ahead of earnings season, and that investors could grow anxious again if banks reveal bigger losses than expected and in more types of debt than anticipated.

In late morning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 62.45, or 0.50 percent, to 12,671.87.

Broader stock indicators also advanced. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 8.74, or 0.64 percent, to 1,379.14, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 9.31, or 0.39 percent, to 2,380.29.

Washington Mutual shot up $2.31, or 22 percent, to $12.48.

In other dealmaking news Monday, Microsoft Corp. gave Yahoo Inc. a three-week deadline to agree to a takeover, or Microsoft plans to launch a proxy fight for control of the company.

Yahoo fell 62 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $27.74, while Microsoft rose 9 cents to $29.25. Yahoo said Monday the deal isn't in the best interests of its shareholders, and called Microsoft's proxy threat counterproductive.

Meanwhile, Swiss pharmaceutical maker Novartis AG said it will spend about $38 billion in a two-step bid for a majority stake in U.S. eye-care company Alcon Inc. Alcon rose $4.61, or 3.1 percent, to $153.06, and Novartis fell $1.67, or 3.2 percent, to $50.45.

Last week, stocks advanced as investors found relief in reports that Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Switzerland's UBS AG are selling stock to raise cash and Merrill Lynch & Co. believes it has sufficient cash to continue operating. Despite a report Friday showing the third straight month of job losses in March, the Dow finished last week up 3.22 percent, the S&P 500 index rose 4.86 percent, and the Nasdaq rose 4.20 percent.

On Monday, government bond prices fell. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.53 percent from 3.47 percent late Wednesday.

Light, sweet crude rose $2.50 to $108.73 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold prices increased, and the dollar gained against most other major currencies.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by more than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 396.5 million shares.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 4.07, or 0.57 percent, to 717.80.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 1.18 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.92 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 0.84 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.80 percent.

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On the Net:

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com

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NBER's Feldstein says U.S. sliding into recession

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Martin Feldstein, who leads the group that is considered the arbiter of U.S. recessions, said on Monday that he personally believes the economy has been sliding into a recession since December or January.

"I think that December/January was the peak and that we have been sliding into recession ever since then," Feldstein, the president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, said on CNBC television.
Feldstein said he believes that the recession will linger. "I think it could go on longer" than the "last two recessions (which) lasted eight months peak to trough," he said, adding the current recession could last about twice as long.
He also said the first quarter U.S. gross domestic product number will be a "misleading" number in that it may not reflect the economy was in a recession in the first three months of the year.
The NBER, a non-profit research organization, typically declares start and end dates for U.S. recessions. The group has not officially declared the U.S. is in a recession.



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