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US stock market daily report (February 27, 2013, Wednesday)

Contributed by Millennium Traders

A $5 million class action lawsuit was filed by U.S. beer drinkers against Budweiser-parent Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) accusing the beer maker for watering down 10 of its beer brands, including Budweiser and Michelob. Vice president of Brewing and Supply at Anheuser-Busch, Peter Kraemer said in a statement that the claims were completely false and that the lawsuit is groundless. "We proudly adhere to the highest standards in brewing our beers, which have made them the best-selling in the U.S. and the world," he said. The complaint alleges that the beer maker "employs some of the most sophisticated process control technology in the world to precisely monitor the alcohol content at the final stages of production, and then adds additional water to produce beers with significantly lower alcohol content than is represented on the product labels."

President Barack Obama on Friday - the same day that across-the-board automatic budget cuts known as the sequester are set to take effect - will meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat; House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Republican and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican. The White House and lawmakers appear increasingly resigned to the sequester going into effect, resulting in $85 billion in cuts taking effect, with only two days remaining. McConnell said in a statement on Wednesday morning, "The meeting Friday is an opportunity for us to visit with the president about how we can all keep our commitment to reduce Washington spending. But one thing Americans simply will not accept is another tax increase to replace spending reductions we already agreed to.” The White House has warned that the sequester will mean a reduction in military preparedness, furloughs of air-traffic controllers and teacher layoffs.

According to the U.S. Commerce Department on Wednesday, orders for U.S. durable goods sank 5.2% in January, mainly due to lower demand for commercial and military aircraft. During January, Boeing Co. (BA) orders were virtually nil and motor-vehicle bookings were flat. Orders for durable goods rose 1.9% - for the strongest increase in over a year - excluding transportation items and advanced for the fifth straight month. Durable goods orders are a critical component of U.S. growth since rising sales of autos, computers, furniture and similar items signal an improving economy. Outside of transportation, increase in orders stemmed mostly from a 13.5% surge in bookings for machinery. Generally, companies purchase more machinery when they expand in anticipation of higher orders, thus investing more in the company. For electronic products and computers, orders fell 5.3%. Overall shipments fell 1.2%. Core capital goods orders - a key barometer of private-sector business investment - surged higher by 6.3% to mark the largest rise in more than two years. A category used to calculate quarterly economic growth , core capital goods, fell by 1.0% during January.

The National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that January pending home sales rose 4.5% in to the highest level since April 2010 with the pending-home-sales index increasing to 105.9 in January from 101.3 in December. January's reading hit the 21st consecutive year-over-year gain, was up 9.5% from the same period in 2011. Pending-home-sale gains by region: Northeast 8.2%; South 5.9%; Midwest 4.5%; West 0.1%.