Biofuels Stock and Financial Outlook for October 1: Stocks expected to open flat, biofuels receive tough coverage in WSJ, NYT
Stocks are expected to open flat this morning as the major indices showed an increase of less than 0.1 percent in futures trading. A manufacuring report, but few major earnings releases, are due today.
Biofuels received unflattering feature coverage in the Wall Street Journal and the New Yorkj Tienms which both suggested the end of boom times for the corn ethanol business, and raised the spectre of consolidation.
On Friday, the Biofuels Digest Indexâ„¢, a basket of 21 public biofuel stocks, fell 1.48% to 98.68 as ethanol giant Archer-Daniels-Midland led the sector down by dropping 1.69% to $33.08. Oil rose to more than $83 per barrel, boosting major ethanol stocks such as Pacific Ethanol (PEIX), Aventine (AVR) and VeraSun Energy (VSE). Environmental Power (EPG) lost 14.52% to close at $5.30 on morning news that its new offering of 5.4 million shares priced at $5.25 per share.
Winners led losers 8 to 7, but solid gains on the biodiesel side with Nova Biosource Fuels (NBF) up 4.07% to $2.81 could not fully offset the downside influence of ADM.
The broader markets were down slightly, with the Dow losing 17.31 points to close at 13895.63, the S&P down 4.63 to 1526.75, and the Nasdaq down 8.09 to 2701.50.
