Stock Market Briefs: Twitter May Consider IPO, Tyson Foods Beats Estimates

Existing Home Sales Up 10% in Oct.; IMF: Dollar Not at Risk; Cadbury Stock Gains On Rumors of Competing Bid; Microsoft and News Corp. in Discussing Possible Pact; Tyson Earnings Beats Street; Campbell Soup Raises Forecast; Holiday Shoppers Preparing to Pare Spending; Twitter IPO a Possibility

• October existing home sales in the United States gained 10% to a 6.1 million annual rate, up from a pace of 5.54 million in September, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said yesterday (Monday). That beat a median estimate of 5.7 million in a survey of 66 economists taken by Bloomberg News. The gain is “an impressive increase and shows a lot of pent-up demand for housing,” Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital Inc. told Bloomberg. “Buyers have enough confidence to take the plunge. The housing market recovery will be a durable one.” Sales were up 23.5% compared to October 2008, when the financial crisis began in earnest.

• The U.S. dollar isn’t under threat, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told Bloomberg Television. Instead, the main challenge will be preventing asset bubbles. “Even with the mountain of debt that we have in front of us, not only in the United States or the United Kingdom and other advanced economies, I don’t believe confidence in the dollar is going to disappear soon,” Strauss-Kahn said. “We are contemplating a very big increase in capital inflows in emerging markets with the risk of asset bubbles.”

• Shares of Cadbury PLC (CBY) rose after reports that Nestle SA (NSRGY.PK) is weighing a bid for the British chocolatier. That comes after a $16.2 billion cash-and-stock bid by Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) and report that The Hershey Co. (HSY) is considering a joint bid for Cadbury with Italian candy maker Ferrero SpA. Cadbury stock gained 1.89% to close at $53.80 in trading yesterday (Monday).

• In what could be could be a boon for ailing newspapers, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has been in discussions with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS). A person familiar with the situation told the Financial Times that the companies are in the early stages of a plan that would involve the media giant being paid to “de-index” its news Web sites from Google Inc.’s (GOOG) ubiquitous search engine. Another large online publisher approached by Microsoft said the plan “puts enormous value on content if search engines are prepared to pay us to index with them,” the FT learned.

• Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN) beat Thomson Reuters Corp. (TRI) estimates of 26 cents per share when a goodwill impairment charge for its beef business was excluded, bringing the meat producer’s earnings to 28 cents per share. Still, Tyson showed disappointing margins for its chicken business in the third quarter, sending its shares down 1.45% to close at $12.88 per share yesterday (Monday). Operating margin for that segment was 1.2%, well below average forecasts of 9%. “People invest in this stock because of its exposure to chicken and the segment continues to underperform its peers significantly,” KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. analyst Akshay Jagdale told Reuters.

• Falling ingredient prices helped Campbell Soup Co. (CPB) report a profit of $304 million, or 87 cents per share, in its fiscal first quarter, compared to a net income of $260 million, or 70 cents a share, a year earlier. Thomson Reuters Corp. (TRI) analysts were expecting earnings of 81 cents per share. Shares in the soup maker gained 1.41% to close at $34.60 yesterday (Monday) as it raised its sales and profit expectations for the year.

• Ninety-three percent of Americans say they will spend the same or less than last year this holiday season, an Associated Press/GfK SE poll of 1,006 adults showed. Roughly 20% of the respondents say they are suffering from debt-related stress, up from 15% in the spring. Eighty percent will use cash to pay for their holiday shopping, which generally means fewer purchases. “Cash serves as a very direct governing force upon spending,” Alan Hilfer, director of psychology at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. told The AP. “If you have $100 in your pocket, and that’s all you can spend, you’ll look around and make a decision based on the amount of money you have.”

• Twitter Inc. co-founder Biz Stone says his company may eventually turn to equities markets if it needs more funding. “We are definitely not interested in selling the company,” Stone said at an Oxford University event. “If an IPO’s the only thing, then sure. But if there is some other way then that would be great too. Maybe some other new way will emerge.” The social networking company, which has yet to turn a profit, received $100 million in capital from T. Rowe Price Group Inc. (TROW) and private equity firm Insight Venture Partners in September, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. The company’s value is reported to be $1 billion.

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