US stocks: Markets may rise after Fed's rate move

NEW YORK - US stocks could advance this week if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates as anticipated, while major indexes continue to flirt with five-year highs.

Investors also will get more data on the closely watched housing market when No. 3 US home builder Lennar Corp. posts its quarterly results on Tuesday.

On Friday, investors pushed stocks higher after a surprisingly sharp drop in new US home sales in February suggested the Federal Reserve may stop raising rates sooner than expected. Shares of home builders, however, initially fell on the news before recovering later in the day.

The weaker home sales report confirmed "what the leading indicators have been saying, that housing's been cooling," said Jeff Schappe, chief investment officer of BB&T Asset Management in Raleigh, North Carolina.

"To the extent that it signals the economy is slowing down, the market's going to say the Fed's going to stop tightening and that would be positive" for stocks, he added.

Shares of retailers in the consumer discretionary sector, such as restaurants or department stores, would not be likely to thrive in a slower economy, but consumer staples could benefit on a relative basis, in Schappe's opinion.

"With the economy cooling, people may be more focused on value," he said. "It's good for Wal-Mart, whereas going out to eat or buying a high-priced article of clothing may cool down. But the equity market as a whole would benefit from the Fed taking its foot off the brake."

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will lead his first rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Monday and Tuesday. His FOMC debut will increase Wall Street's focus on the policy-makers' gathering. An outcome of another 25-basis-point increase in the federal funds rate target is widely anticipated.

It would be the Fed's 15th consecutive rate increase since it began tightening credit on June 30, 2004.

"Anything other than an increase of 25 basis points would be extremely surprising," said David Chalupnik, the head of equities at US Bancorp Asset Management. "There is a little more anxiety because it is Bernanke on board here."

Chalupnik sees range-bound stock trading in the week ahead with small gains possible once the rate-setting meeting ends and related uncertainty is cleared out of the way.

For the past week, the Dow Jones industrial average finished flat, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index slipped 0.3 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.3 per cent.

Interest-rate futures markets are increasingly forecasting that the Fed will raise official short-term interest rates by a quarter-point on Tuesday and just one more time after that before halting its nearly two-year campaign of "measured" quarter-point increases.

Two more rate rises would lift the federal funds rate that banks charge one another for overnight loans to 5.00 per cent from 4.50 per cent currently.

Stock market participants generally think uncertainty will weigh on the market until the Fed has completed the current cycle of rate increases.

"Down the road, economic indicators are going to show slowing growth," Schappe said.

"The Fed's going to maintain a posture of tightening until they see a number of months of slower GDP growth," he added. "There will be some turbulence in the near term, but ultimately, the Fed will adopt a 'neutral' bias and that will be positive for the stock market."

A final look at fourth-quarter gross domestic product, due on Thursday, will be among this week's most closely watched economic reports. Economists polled by Reuters expect that fourth-quarter GDP grew at an annual rate of 1.7 per cent, instead of the previously reported 1.6 per cent.

The consumer confidence index for March, expected on Tuesday from the Conference Board, is seen rising to 102.0 in March from 101.7 in February, according to the Reuters poll.

On Friday, the economic calendar will be full: February personal income and consumption; the University of Michigan's final March reading on consumer sentiment; the Chicago Purchasing Managers' Index, known as the Chicago PMI, for March, and February US factory orders.

 

Carter Worth, chief market technician at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, said he will be watching shares of airlines, railroads and real estate investment trusts, which he thinks are "way overdone."

The Dow Jones Transportation Average hit a lifetime high last week, while the Morgan Stanley Capital Index of US REITs reached a record high on March 17.

But some recent dogs could see a turnaround.

"Wal-Mart is starting to stabilize. DuPont, Family Dollar, Zebra Technology, Petco, are all looking poised for bearish to bullish reversals. Paper stocks, too, International Paper and Abitibi-Consolidated, they've definitely been weaker and have not participated, but they are coming to life and we would play them for further life. They're going perk up."

Besides home builder Lennar, companies expected to report earnings this week include drugstore company Walgreen Co., payroll processor Paychex Inc, jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co. and consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Co. Inc.

- REUTERS