Tuesday Close

S&P 500 1,096.19 +.05%
NASDAQ 1,836.89 -.10%

Leading Sectors
Airlines +2.44%
Restaurants +1.07%
Transports +.84%

Lagging Sectors
Broadcasting -.79%
Networking -1.15%
Semis -2.52%

Other
Crude Oil 45.15 -1.95%
Natural Gas 5.36 +1.04%
Gold 405.50 -1.77%
Base Metals 109.19 +.26%
U.S. Dollar 89.43 +.42%
10-Yr. T-note Yield 4.27% -.36%
VIX 15.33 -3.46%
Put/Call .79 unch.
NYSE Arms 1.23 +21.78%

After-hours Movers
DITC +27.07% after beating 1Q estimates and raising 2Q forecast.
SMTC +7.2% after beating 2Q estimates and reiterating 3Q forecast.
SEAC -3.62% after beating 2Q forecast and reiterating 3Q guidance.
APPB -4.45% after saying the Olympics will hurt sales first week in Sept.
HRB -7.87% after missing 1Q estimates and giving weak 05 guidance.

Recommendations
Goldman Sachs reiterated Outperform on BBY, HD, SPLS, PETC, JTX and MDT.

After-hours News
U.S. stocks finished mixed today as falling oil prices offset weaker economic data and terrorism fears ahead of the Republican Convention. Hedge funds, pension funds and other buyers of bonds are planning to hire more fixed-income professionals even as U.S. bond markets are enduring a lackluster year, Reuters reported. Rapid advancements in biotechnology in the past five years have created demand for more lawyers in the field, the New York Law Journal reported. Sunoco, the largest oil refiner in the U.S. Northeast, will shut much of its plant in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 5 for two to three weeks of maintenance, Reuters said. Alan Greenspan said the case has not been made to monitor hedge funds and that China's slowing economy should rebound, Bloomberg reported. H&R Block had a $44.1 million loss in its fiscal first quarter as earnings from mortgage loans fell and an office expansion increased costs, Bloomberg said. Sugar-rich soft drinks and fruit punch are fueling twin surges in U.S. obesity and diabetes, according to a U.S. study in the Aug. 25 Journal of the American Medical Association. California's credit rating on $42.7 billion of bonds was raised three levels by S&P after the state's economy improved and Governor Schwarzenegger engineered a bond sale to avert a cast shortage, Bloomberg reported. Viacom, signaling that investors are shunning its plan to split off home-video unit Blockbuster, said it may once again have to write down the value of the video rental chain's assets, Bloomberg said.

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio finished slightly lower today as my shorts were mixed and technology longs fell. I added a few new longs in the afternoon, bringing the Portfolio's market exposure to 50% net long. One of my new longs is AMXC and I am using a stop-loss of $16 on this position. The tone of the market was pretty good today, considering last week's run-up. The market appears to be consolidating before another move higher next week.