Wednesday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:
- Japan’s export growth unexpectedly accelerated in February.
- Cia. Vale do Rio Doce, the world’s biggest iron-ore producer, scrapped a proposal to buy Xstrata Plc for cash and shares through the world’s biggest mining takeover.
- Clear Channel(CCU) Drops as Journal Says Buyout May Fail.
- Orange-juice futures fell for a fourth session on signs consumer demand for the beverage isn’t keeping up with the harvest in Florida, the world’s second largest orange grower.
- Bear Stearns(BSC) Worsens China’s Hot-Money Quandary.
- Bear Stearns(BSC) investors seeking a higher price than JPMorgan Chase’s(JPM) bid of $10 a share asked a Delaware judge to halt a stock transaction that may prevent opponents from blocking the takeover.

Wall Street Journal:
- McCain Talks Economy, Picks up Reagan Nod.
- China Taking Aim at Media Over Tibet. The Chinese government bans CNN in most homes. The talk of China in recent days? The news coverage on CNN.

MarketWatch.com:
- Consumer confidence is a lagging, not leading, indicator. “Low consumer confidence is followed by high stock returns more often than it is followed by low stock returns.”
- Was that the bottom? Contrarians growing more confident that bottom has been seen.
- Big Blue’s shares have outperformed market; Wall Street sees further upside.

CNBC.com:
- Credit Disaster? Maybe It’s Not So Bad After All. Maybe, just maybe, the financial world is not about to implode. Such is the level of disaster mongering surrounding the latest phase of the eight-month-old credit crisis that you could be forgiven for thinking we will all soon be hoarding food and reverting to a barter economy.
- Wall Street’s biggest firms, battered by the breakdown in mortgage and other debt markets say there’s money to be made among the wreckage.
- Buying at the Bottom.
- BlackRock’s Doll: Market Has Turned a Corner.

BusinessWeek.com:
- Joocing the Next Billion Internet Users. Paris startup Jooce has an idea: Instead of one laptop per child, why not many virtual desktops per public computer? It’s catching on.

Forbes.com:
- World’s Most Desirable Luxury Brands.
- Markets Bet On Sweetened Deal for Countrywide(CFC).

macnn:
- Apple(AAPL) granted patents for iPod Click Wheel, iMac Flex Arm, more.

Financial Times:
- JPMorgan Chase(JPM) lures Bear brokers. JPMorgan Chase is offering Bear Stearns’ best brokers annual bonuses of more than $500,000 in an effort to prevent an exodus of talent as a result of its planned takeover of the stricken investment bank.
- The Federal Home Loan Baking system, a government-sponsored network of US banks, is seeking to enter the so-called “monoline” insurance market to help local governments that have been hurt by the credit market storm.

TimesOnline:
- The day Wall Street pulled $10 billion from Bear Stearns(BSC) and forced sale. Bear’s liquidity pool, which stood at $21 billion early this month, fell dramatically from $18.1 billion to $11.5 billion on March 10 “as rumors spread about liquidity problems at Bear Stearns, which eroded investor confidence,” wrote Christopher Cox, chairman of the SEC. Bear’s collapse was “the result of a loss of confidence, not a lack of capital.” “Counter-party withdrawals and credit denials, resulting in loss of liquidity – not inadequate capital – caused Bear’s demise,” Mr. Cox said.

Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Citigroup:
- Maintained Buy on (CMC), raised target to $40.
- Reiterated Buy on (RIMM), target $140.

Morgan Stanley:
- We view Apple’s(AAPL) building momentum in higher education as another key growth lever. In the near term, it sets the company up for a strong September quarter. Longer-term, we see an “aging phenomenon” that will put Apple in a more mainstream market share position as students enter the work force, much like Linux adoption in the 1998-2003 time frame. Apple currently holds 3% global PC market share, compared to 8-20% share for each of the top 3 PC vendors. Even our above-consensus forecast assumes just 4.6% Apple PC market share by 2010 – and every incremental point of market share adds $6 billion to revenue and $1 to EPS. A recent higher education survey shows Apple’s mindshare(roughly 40% of college students plan to buy a Mac) tracks well ahead of current market share(15%) and we compare the potential for related market share gains to Linux adoption that also started at universities. Mac March quarter results are likely to buck the normal PC seasonal unit trend(typically -10% QoQ), supporting our thesis of secular growth.

Night Trading
Asian Indices are -.25% to +.75% on average.
S&P 500 futures -.29%.
NASDAQ 100 futures -.19%.

Morning Preview
US AM Market Call
NASDAQ 100 Pre-Market Indicator/Heat Map
Pre-market Commentary
Pre-market Stock Quote/Chart
Before the Bell CNBC Video(bottom right)
Global Commentary
WSJ Intl Markets Performance
Commodity Movers
Top 25 Stories
Top 20 Business Stories
Today in IBD
In Play
Bond Ticker
Economic Preview/Calendar
Daily Stock Events
Upgrades/Downgrades
Rasmussen Business/Economy Polling
CNBC Guest Schedule

Earnings of Note
Company/EPS Estimate
- (RBN)/.43
- (CKR)/.06
- (RECN)/.20
- (PAYX)/.39
- (ORCL)/.30
- (PBY)/-.08

Upcoming Splits
- (STLD) 2-for-1

Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
- Durable Goods Orders for February are estimated to rise .7% versus a -5.3% decline in January.
- Durables Ex Transports for February are estimated to fall -.3% versus a -1.6% decline in January.

10:00 am EST
- New Home Sales for February are estimated to fall to 578K versus 588K in January.

10:30 am EST
- Bloomberg consensus estimates call for a weekly crude oil build of 1,800,000 barrels versus a 133,000 barrel increase the prior week. Gasoline supplies are expected to fall by -1,150,000 barrels versus a -3,447,000 barrel decline the prior week. Distillate inventories are estimated to fall by -1,625,000 barrels versus a -2,910,000 barrel decline the prior week. Finally, Refinery Utilization is estimated to rise by .48% versus a -1.15% decline the prior week.

Other Potential Market Movers
- The (WNC) analyst meeting, (WIND) analyst day, (SRP) analyst meeting, weekly MBA Mortgage Applications report, CSFB Global Leveraged Finance Conference, Sidoti Emerging Growth Conference, JPMorgan Gaming/Lodging/Restaurants Conference and Banc of America SMid Cap Conference could also impact trading today.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by industrial and commodity stocks in the region. I expect US equities to open modestly lower and to rally into the afternoon, finishing mixed. The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into the day.