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Home Sales Boost Stocks
A surprisingly strong report on home sales buoyed the stock market Wednesday, though selling in the energy sector kept major indexes in check as traders fretted about oil demand.
Major opened slightly lower but recovered to traded near break-even after the housing data were released at 10 Eastern.
The Dow Jones Industrials were recently up 10 points, or 0.4%. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.2%. The S&P was up 0.1%.
![[Markets Data]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MDGpromo_D01222009151210.jpg)
The Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes climbed by 9.6% in July, a much stronger increase than analysts expected. Another closely watched measure – the inventory of unsold homes – fell to 7.5 months of supply, the lowest level since April 2007.
Many analysts are looking for such a drawdown to continue in order to boost the value of homes throughout the market, which in turn will bolster many homeowners wealth and spending power.
Despite the market's overall strength, energy stocks were a laggard, with the S&P's energy category trading down slightly.
Crude-oil futures, which have risen in five of the last six sessions, were recently down 66 cents at $71.39 a barrel in New York.
Much of oil's recent gains have been built on optimism following data last week that showed a surprising drawdown in U.S. reserves of the commodity. But that euphoria lost steam on Tuesday when the American Petroleum Institute, an oil-industry group, reported a 4.3-million barrel build in U.S. crude inventories for its latest weekly reporting period, disappointing analysts who were expecting another drawdown.
The federal Energy Information Administration is due to release its tally of inventories shortly, and traders are bracing for signs of weakness there as well on the heels of the API report.
"The traditional fundamentals are starting to take over again in this market," said energy analyst Phil Flynn, of PFGBest Research in Chicago. "We were being driven before on oil's relationship to stocks and the dollar, which are fundamentals in a sense. But now it's more about supply and demand," which looks likely to remain weak due to the lingering effects of the U.S. recession.
In other economic news on Wednesday, demand for long-lasting goods rebounded sharply in July, staging their biggest gain in two years on the back of big orders for planes and capital goods. Manufacturers' orders for durable goods jumped 4.9% last month to a seasonally adjusted $168.43 billion, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That was the largest increase since 5.4% in July 2007. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had projected a 3% gain in July orders.
The Treasury is selling $39 billion of five-year notes, and Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart will discuss the economy at noon Eastern.
In recent action, Treasury prices edged higher. The two-year note was up 1/32 to yield 1.044%. The 10-year note gained 5/32 to yield 3.422%.
Health-care stocks also will be in the spotlight after the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, a noted advocate for health reform. Speculation will center on whether Sen. Kennedy's death pushes the languishing reform efforts through Congress.
Among stocks to watch, WPP, the U.K. advertising giant, reported a 48% first-half profit fall and forecast 2010 revenue to be flat despite events including the FIFA World Cup and the Winter Olympics next year. Its shares were recently down 2.9%.
Overseas, the Nikkei 225 rose 1.4% in Tokyo, while stronger-than-forecast German business climate data wasn't enough to lift stocks in the country, as the DAX fell 0.4%.
Sen. Edward Kennedy Dies After Battle With Cancer
NAFTALI BENDAVID
![[0807kennedy13]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-EF236_0807ke_F_20090807155719.jpg)
Terry Ashe/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images WASHINGTON -- Sen. Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy, a liberal icon and frequent Republican target who was one of the longest-serving and most accomplished lawmakers of the modern era, has died at age 77.
In succumbing to brain cancer at his family's home in Hyannis Port, Mass., Mr. Kennedy became the only one of four dynamic Kennedy brothers to die of natural causes, or even live long enough to see his hair turn white. President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert Kennedy were assassinated in the 1960s, and their oldest brother, Joseph Kennedy Jr., died in World War II.
Mr. Kennedy's family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday. "We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," it said.
In nearly five decades in the Senate, Mr. Kennedy fathered legislation that affected millions, tackling, among other things, education in the 1960s, poverty in the 1970s, disability in the 1980s and education in the 1990s. His longevity helped him build what many consider the most substantial record of achievement of anyone in his famous family, and made him a hero to many Democrats. A frequent nemesis of conservatives, he nonetheless forged friendships and legislative partnerships with many Republicans over the years.
Mr. Kennedy died with one of his lifelong goals, universal health care, tantalizingly within reach yet struggling on Capitol Hill. Some advocates have said his absence has hurt the chances for legislation, and hope Mr. Kennedy's passing will give new momentum and emotional force to his favored cause.
Mr. Kennedy was embraced early on as an heir to a heroic legacy and long seen as a president-in-waiting. But his own mistakes -- especially a car crash near Chappaquiddick Island in 1969, in which a campaign aide died -- helped cost him the presidency when he sought it in 1980. In later years, episodes like the rape trial of his nephew William Kennedy Smith in 1991 gave him the reputation of an irresponsible playboy.
But Mr. Kennedy never entirely lost his standing, and he rebuilt his reputation sufficiently so that when candidate Barack Obama won the senator's endorsement in the Democratic primaries last year, it was seen as a major coup and helped shift the race's dynamic.
Mr. Obama, speaking Wednesday morning, said that while people knew Mr. Kennedy's time was short, "we've awaited it with no small amount of dread." He noted an outpouring of affection for the venerable Massachusetts Democrat, calling him a "singular figure in American history" who touched many lives.
Mr. Kennedy was a red-faced, white-haired figure, known for his belly laugh and strong Boston accent. Republicans for decades lampooned him as a quintessential liberal villain in their fund-raising appeals, but he forged friendships and legislative partnerships with many Republicans over the years.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, a deeply conservative Utah Republican who became especially close to Mr. Kennedy, has long kept a painting by the senator in his office bearing the inscription, "We'll leave the light at the [Kennedy] compound on for you anytime." Mr. Hatch attended the funeral of Mr. Kennedy's mother, Rose, in 1995, and a few months later Mr. Kennedy attended the funeral of Mr. Hatch's mother.
On Wednesday, he issued a statement, saying Mr. Kennedy "was an iconic, larger than life United States Senator whose influence cannot be overstated.'' He listed of nearly a dozen bipartisan bills they worked on jointly, including a federally funded program for victims of HIV/AIDS, health insurance for lower-income children and tax breaks to encourage the development of medicine for rare diseases.
Ted Kennedy, in Photos
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Sen. Kennedy, shortly after the Chappaquiddick incident.
Liberal Warrior
Major events and legislative accomplishments in Sen. Kennedy's life.
The Kennedy Family, in Photos
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From left, the future Eunice Kennedy Shriver, future Senator and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (1925 - 1968), future Senator Ted Kennedy, and future Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith, in Palm Beach, Fla., Jan. 7, 1941.
The Kennedy Dynasty
Political success, personal tragedy
Had his own health not begun to fail, Mr. Kennedy would have been a central player in the Democrats' push to overhaul the health-care system this year. Instead, many lawmakers, including Republicans, lamented the absence of Mr. Kennedy's legislative skills as the debate unfolded.
For much of the year, Mr. Kennedy spoke regularly about the health legislation with lawmakers including Sen. Chris Dodd (D., Conn.), his best friend in the Senate. In recent months, however, he was in touch with fewer and fewer people, and by the end he wasn't involved in details of the negotiations.
Mr. Kennedy spent almost 47 years in the Senate, making him the third-longest serving senator in the chamber's history, after Sen. Robert Byrd (D., W.Va.) and the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R., S.C.). The 91-year-old Mr. Byrd is still serving, but like Mr. Kennedy, he has been ailing and rarely voted in recent months.
Massachusetts holds special elections to fill its Senate vacancies, and the state is strongly Democratic, so Mr. Kennedy's successor might not alter the Senate's balance of power. Under state law, the election can't take place for at least 145 days, which would leave the Democrats shorthanded until then. But before he died, Sen. Kennedy had asked Massachusetts lawmakers to change state law to give Gov. Deval Patrick, a fellow Democrat, the ability to appoint an interim successor.
Still, Mr. Kennedy was influential at the highest levels of government until the end. He was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor in May 2008, becoming ill just when he would have enjoyed his greatest power in decades, with large Democratic majorities in Congress and a president who admired him. In July, Mr. Obama awarded Mr. Kennedy the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
His legislative accomplishments stretch to his early days in the Senate. He played a key role in 1965 immigration legislation that overturned rules favoring immigrants from Western countries; Title IX, the 1972 law aimed at ensuring equity between men and women's educational and sports programs; the post-Watergate campaign rules of 1974; the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; several minimum-wage increases; and President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act.
Mr. Kennedy's influence was felt in other ways as well. He has assembled a widely admired staff over the years whose alumni have gone on to make their mark, including Stephen Breyer, a Supreme Court justice, and Melody Barnes, Mr. Obama's domestic policy adviser.
In March, Mr. Kennedy came to the Senate floor for a final time, leaning on a cane and accompanied by his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D., R.I.), to vote for a $5 billion bill he sponsored to expand public service. He was greeted with a spontaneous ovation, handshakes and embraces from colleagues of both parties.
Of the nine children of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy, the lone survivor now is Jean Kennedy Smith, a former ambassador to Ireland.
Just a few weeks ago on Aug. 11, Mr. Kennedy released a statement on the death of his older sister, 88-year-old Eunice Kennedy Shriver. "Eunice is now with God in heaven," Mr. Kennedy wrote. "I know that our parents and brothers and sisters who have gone before are filled with joy to have her by their side again."
Early Years
If ever a man seemed heir to a destiny, it was Mr. Kennedy. He was born on Feb. 22, 1932, the ninth child and fourth son of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Kennedy, who were already pushing their children toward high achievement.
The elder Kennedy had become wealthy as a financier, but his great desire was to make a mark in politics. After his own presidential ambitions were derailed because of isolationist leanings in World War II, he transferred his political aspiration to his sons.
In His Own Words
As the youngest Kennedy, Ted was furthest from his father's ambition. He was also different temperamentally from his brothers. Fun-loving and jolly where they were ambitious and driven, Ted sometimes seemed the least Kennedyesque of the Kennedys.
At Harvard University, Mr. Kennedy was suspended for cheating on a test, the first distasteful event of a career that was to include many. By the time Mr. Kennedy went on to the University of Virginia law school and married Joan Bennett in 1958, his brother John was a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. Kennedy managed John's victorious Senate re-election campaign at age 26, though the race's outcome was hardly in doubt. In 1960, he helped run his brother's presidential campaign against Vice President Richard Nixon, an event that reshaped American political culture and created a special place for the Kennedys within it, with their youthful charisma and intellectual cool.
But Mr. Kennedy's own place, within the culture and the family, was less certain.
Brothers' Deaths
Reflecting his family's perpetual push for power, Mr. Kennedy prepared to run for John Kennedy's Senate seat when his brother became president, though the younger Kennedy had yet to hold any public office. He actually had to wait until 1962 to reach the constitutionally mandated minimum age of 30 for U.S. senators.
Given his youth, it was inevitable that Mr. Kennedy would be ridiculed for trying to inherit the Senate seat rather than earning it. His Democratic opponent, Edward McCormack, famously cracked that if Mr. Kennedy's name was Edward Moore instead of Edward Moore Kennedy, his candidacy "would be a joke."
But Mr. Kennedy proved a surprisingly good campaigner, and the Kennedys enjoyed enormous popularity in Massachusetts. He won the Democratic primary by a margin of 69% to 31% and prevailed easily in the general election.
Coming to Washington, the young senator enjoyed one happy year of serving with his brothers as part of an American royal family. Then, on Nov. 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated, throwing American politics into disarray and changing Mr. Kennedy's role forever.
After a period of grief, he resumed his place in the Senate, and his colleagues noted new qualities of determination and resilience. He began establishing the reputation for hard work, collegiality and effectiveness that would mark him for decades.
His first big legislative win came in 1965, when he pushed through an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws so they would no longer favor white Europeans. Some critics still blame those changes for the nation's immigration problems, while others hail them for removing a longstanding bias.
In 1968, Robert Kennedy, who had been serving in the Senate from New York alongside his brother, sought the presidency himself, in an emotional, turbulent campaign. His effort was cut short when he was shot dead on June 4, 1968, after winning the California primary.
Mr. Kennedy, now the only surviving brother, delivered a eulogy that marked his ascent to the leadership of the Kennedy family and the liberal movement. "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good, decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it," he said.
Some of Mr. Kennedy's supporters urged him to seize the torch and run for president himself that year, despite fears, which took decades to dissipate, that he, too, would succumb to an assassin. The Democratic Party had been ripped apart by social issues and the Vietnam War, and many believed Mr. Kennedy was the only figure who could unite the party and possibly the country.
But Mr. Kennedy declined. His brothers' deaths were still too recent. And at 36, he seemed to have all the time in the world to seek the presidency.
Chappaquiddick and Presidential Run
Mr. Kennedy's colleagues soon elected him Senate majority whip, making him the chamber's No. 2 Democrat, reflecting his colleagues' affection and seemingly preparing him to challenge President Richard Nixon in 1972.
From the Archives
- Ted Kennedy Builds Massachusetts Senate Bid Around Brothers
6/1/1962 - Ted Kennedy's Youth Bothers More Voters Than 'Dynasty' Charge
8/6/1962 - Sen. Kennedy Seems Genuinely Undecided on Presidential Race
9/16/1964 - Looking Ahead to '72: Ted Kennedy Restricts Campaigning but Wins Some Allies for Future
9/27/1968 - Man on the Move: Kennedy Builds Power in Party and Senate, Denies 1980 Ambitions
9/29/1978
Mr. Nixon had become obsessed with Mr. Kennedy, who seemed to embody the Eastern establishment that Mr. Nixon believed despised him. To some, that only confirmed Mr. Kennedy's status as the great liberal hope.
But everything changed in the summer of 1969, when Mr. Kennedy attended a party on the island of Chappaquiddick, near Martha's Vineyard. Toward the end of the party, the senator got in a car with Mary Jo Kopechne, a young woman who had worked on his brother Robert's presidential campaign.
Mr. Kennedy drove the car off a bridge and into the water, and as he struggled to the surface, Ms. Kopechne drowned. Mr. Kennedy left the scene and didn't report the accident to the police until the following day. Mr. Kennedy was easily re-elected to the Senate but was badly damaged politically, and he decided not to seek the presidency in 1972 or 1976.
Still, Mr. Kennedy's political power wasn't destroyed by Chappaquiddick. Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern tried to persuade Mr. Kennedy to be his running mate in 1972, and many believed that was the only way Mr. McGovern would have had a chance of winning. And had Mr. Kennedy run in 1976, shortly after Watergate, he might well have captured the Democratic nomination and the presidency, which instead were won by little-known Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter.
In 1980, Mr. Kennedy finally took the leap and became the third and last Kennedy brother to seek the presidency. In some ways, it was the worst possible year, since it is extremely difficult to defeat an incumbent president in a primary. The timing raised questions about whether Mr. Kennedy really wanted the office.
Other events during the campaign reinforced those questions, including a notoriously rambling answer to a question by CBS's Roger Mudd about why he wanted to be president. Despite some late primary wins, Mr. Kennedy was routed by Mr. Carter by the time of the Democratic convention in New York.
At the convention, the eloquence that had eluded Mr. Kennedy during the primaries burst out in a torrent. "For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," he told the delegates. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
The applause was impassioned. As Mr. Carter pursued Mr. Kennedy in search of a handshake, it was almost as though Mr. Kennedy had been the winner.
Struggle and Resurrection
Mr. Carter survived the challenge from Mr. Kennedy, but not a more forceful one from Ronald Reagan, who decisively took the presidency in 1980, beginning a long period of conservative ascendancy. Some Democrats thought Mr. Kennedy's primary challenge, by weakening Mr. Carter, contributed to Mr. Reagan's win.
The Republican victory left Mr. Kennedy the leader of the liberal opposition. It was a role he adopted with relish, culminating in the fight over Mr. Reagan's July 1987 nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.
Less than an hour after Mr. Reagan announced the nomination, Mr. Kennedy took to the Senate floor to unleash fiery rhetoric: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids…"
It became one of Mr. Kennedy's most famous speeches, praised as brilliant and denounced as demagogic. It galvanized opposition to Mr. Bork, who was defeated by the Senate 58-42.
But when President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court four years later, Mr. Kennedy was in no position to play such a role.
Mr. Kennedy's nephew, William Kennedy Smith, had been charged with raping a woman while the senator and Mr. Smith were staying at a Kennedy home in Palm Beach, Fla. Although Mr. Smith was acquitted, the trial shined a harsh light on longtime reports of Mr. Kennedy's drinking and womanizing.
When Anita Hill, a former colleague of Mr. Thomas, accused him of sexually harassing her, Mr. Kennedy couldn't credibly criticize the nominee's treatment of women. His personal life and political stature had reached a low point.
He set about repairing them. In July 1992, Mr. Kennedy, who had been divorced for a decade, married Victoria Reggie. He strongly supported Bill Clinton, the first successful Democratic presidential candidate in 16 years, who in turn embraced Mr. Kennedy and his family's legacy.
Two years later, facing the most serious challenge to his Senate seat since he first won it, Mr. Kennedy campaigned energetically and defeated Mitt Romney—in a year, 1994, that was otherwise triumphant for congressional Republicans. Mr. Romney, a successful venture capitalist, used that campaign to launch his own political career, going on to become the Republican governor of the heavily Democratic state, and now a likely presidential contender in 2012.
Survivor in the Senate
In his later years Mr. Kennedy solidified his reputation as a master legislator. Despite his reputation for left-wing ideological purity, Mr. Kennedy's chief strategy was to work closely with high-profile Republicans like Mr. Hatch on bills that were often compromises, yet achieved a good portion of Mr. Kennedy's goals.
In 1996, Mr. Kennedy pushed through the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, making it easier for people to keep insurance when they changed jobs. It was a typical Kennedy move: It brought the nation a small step closer to his goal of universal health care, and it was accomplished with the help of a Republican, Sen. Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas.
Mr. Kennedy also worked with Mr. Hatch in 1997 to enact the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which now covers 11 million children. And his support for President George W. Bush's drive to add a prescription-drug benefit to Medicare was crucial to its passage in 2003.
The most dramatic example of Mr. Kennedy's strategy of teaming up with a big-name Republican was his decision to back Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. That episode also showed the pitfalls of the approach; Mr. Kennedy was criticized by fellow Democrats, and he became furious later when he felt the White House had underfunded the effort.
Mr. Obama's rise to the presidency marked Mr. Kennedy's return to the true center of the national stage. Beyond his importance to Mr. Obama's signature issue of health care, the president has self-consciously revived the cool, cerebral style of the Kennedys.
Mr. Kennedy's final months were marked by the poignancy of a man who had fought his whole career for universal health care facing his last window of opportunity to accomplish it, even while engaging in his own devastating health battle.
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