Biofuels Stock and Financial Outlook for September 18

Stocks index futures were up 0.1% this morning in trading, presaging a positive market open, as investors await the Federal Reserve rate decision. The decision is expected after 2pm EDT.
The Biofuels Digest Indexâ„¢ (BDI), a basket of 21 major public biofuel stocks, fell 0.80% on Monday to 97.31 as a weeklong biofuels selloff picked up where last week left off, and gloom gathered over the market as it contemplated the wreckage of UK mortgage lender Northern Rock (NRK.L) which suffered a panic run today as nervous depositors feared the collapse of the firm.

Among biofuel stocks, US BioEnergy (USBE), Earth Biofuels (EBOF.OB) and Aventine (AVR) all fell more than 6% in the melee, while Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) and VeraSun (VSE) each fell more than 2%. The BDI is down nearly 6% since September 4. Soleil Securities analyst Ian Horowitz downgraded VeraSun, US BioEnergy and Aventine today as concerns mounted about the falling price of ethanol and rising price of corn.

In the broader markets, the Dow Jones industrials fell 39.10 points to 13,403.42, the S&P 500 fell 7.60 to close at 1476.65, and the Nasdaq dropped 20.52 points to 2581.66 on news that Microsoft’s anti-trust appeal in the EU had been comprehensively rejected.

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