Monday Watch

Weekend Headlines
Bloomberg:
- The US dollar rose to a one-month high against the euro as the pace of job erosion in the U.S. slowed while a decline in German retail sales indicated economic weakness is spreading to other developed countries. The currency increased for a third week against the euro, its longest stretch of gains since May 2007. The Australian and New Zealand dollars fell against all of the other major currencies as reports showed Australia's manufacturing contracted and business confidence in New Zealand fell.
- President George W. Bush criticized Democrats in Congress for not acting on his proposal to open more domestic land to oil drilling, saying lawmakers should revisit the issue when they return from their August recess. ``Democratic leaders are leaving town without taking any action to ease the burden of high gas prices,'' Bush said in his weekly radio broadcast. ``If Congress does not act, they will owe families across America an explanation for why they're ignoring their concerns.''
- Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his nation is ``serious'' in nuclear talks after an informal deadline for it to reply to an incentives offer in exchange for halting uranium enrichment passed. ``We are serious in nuclear talks and are keen for them to be based on legal principles,'' Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic Islamic News Agency.
- Orange juice fell to its lowest price since 2005 on speculation that U.S. inventories of frozen concentrate will keep rising as demand slows and the threat of storm damage diminished for Florida's citrus crops. Orange juice plunged 28 percent this year, the second- biggest drop after nickel on the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 commodities. Frozen stockpiles of the juice rose 67 percent in June from a year earlier, and retail sales have dropped every month for more than three years, government data show.
- Corn fell, capping the fifth straight weekly drop, and soybeans declined on speculation that rainfall will ease the stress of hot weather and improve crop conditions in the U.S., the world's largest producer and exporters. Corn futures for December delivery fell 22.5 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $5.85 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, the biggest drop since July 17. The price slid 1.9 percent for the week. Most-active futures plunged 20 percent in July, the most in 22 years, and are down 27 percent from a record $7.9925 on June 27.
- Platinum fell the most in four months in New York on speculation that demand from the auto industry, which accounts for most consumption, will drop while output has stabilized. Palladium also declined. Palladium futures for September delivery sank $12.40, or 3.2 percent, to $371.10 an ounce. The price dropped for a sixth consecutive week, declining 3.1 percent. Most-active futures fell 17 percent last month, the biggest such drop since a 22 percent plunge in March.
- European 10-year bonds had the biggest weekly advance in a decade after a German retail sales report added to evidence that economic growth is slowing.
- Alibaba.com Corp., the closely held Chinese Internet company whose biggest shareholder is Yahoo! Inc.(YHOO), is ready for a possible purchase of the U.S. company's stake in it if the shares are offered.
- Wachovia Corp.(WB) jumped to a seven-week high on renewed speculation that Goldman Sachs Group Inc.(GS) may bid for the fourth-largest U.S. bank.
- Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said he's willing to support an expansion of offshore oil drilling that's part of an $84 billion Senate plan aimed at increasing domestic energy production. Obama, who has opposed more drilling off the nation's coastlines, said that while he ``remains skeptical'' about the idea, he would compromise because the proposal offers a ``careful and responsible'' drilling agenda. It also calls for other measures to wean the country off its dependence on imported oil.
- Saudi Arabian inflation accelerated to a record 10.6 percent in June from 10.4 percent in May, led by a jump in food and housing costs, Saudi Press Agency reported. Food and beverage prices rose 16 percent in June from a year earlier after gaining 15 percent in May, the state-owned news wire said today. Rent, fuel and water was 19 percent more expensive. Inflation accelerated above 10 percent in five of the six Gulf Cooperation Council states as oil-fueled economic growth created shortages of housing and services. The kingdom's M1 money-supply growth, a gauge of future inflation, accelerated to 29 percent in June from 27 percent in May. Saudi commercial bank lending to the private sector, a contributor to money supply, increased 35 percent, after gaining 33 percent in May. Qatar had the highest inflation in the GCC, at 14.8 percent in the first quarter, followed by 13.2 percent in Oman. The U.A.E., which reports inflation annually, said consumer prices rose 11.1 percent last year. Kuwait reported that the inflation rate fell to 11.1 percent in May from 11.4 percent in April.
- The comeback of tech banker Frank Quattrone.
- New Jersey residents are open to building both windmills and oil rigs off the state's coast to help combat rising energy prices, according to a Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll. Electricity-generating windmills were supported by 82 percent of respondents while drilling for oil near the coast is backed by 56 percent, according to a statement today from the Monmouth University Polling Institute. A majority, 53 percent, of New Jerseyans polled blame stock market speculators for the price of oil, while 14 percent cited higher demand.
- ``The Dark Knight,'' the sequel to ``Batman Begins,'' was the top film for a third weekend at U.S. and Canadian theaters, garnering $43.8 million in ticket sales and possibly challenging the all-time U.S. box-office record.
- China’s Inflation Is Harder to Control Than Web. Suddenly, the new China is looking a lot like the old China.
- Currency traders are beginning to realize that for all its riches in oil, copper and lumber, Canada's economy may not be so different than the U.S. after all. While Canadians celebrated last year as the country's dollar reached parity with its U.S. counterpart for the first time since 1976, traders now predict the currency will fall as much as 17 percent through 2009.
- William Fitzpatrick, who helps manage $1.5 billion at Optique Capital Management, says crude oil may fall below $100. (video)

Wall Street Journal:
- Time Warner Inc.(TWX) has completed the internal work necessary to separate its AOL unit’s dial-up-access business from its advertising and content business. Now it will get serious about plotting the unit’s next steps, including whether to sell one or both of the businesses.
- Strong Productivity Defies Trend And Gives Fed Room to Maneuver. In the six U.S. recessions since 1970, worker productivity, or output per hour, grew a sluggish 0.8%, on average. But since the end of last year, even amid economic weakness, productivity is estimated to have grown an average 2.5% at an annual rate. That defies productivity's usual behavior of going "up in good times and down in bad times," says Georgia State University forecaster Rajeev Dhawan.

Fox News:
- Al Qaeda confirmed in a Web statement Sunday the death of a senior commander known as a top explosives and poisons expert, who is believed to have been killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan last week. The statement said Abu Khabab al-Masri and three other commanders were killed. Al-Masri, an Egyptian militant whose real name is Midhat Mursi, had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States. He is accused of training terrorists to use poisons and explosives, and is believed to have trained homicide bombers who killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

MarketWatch.com:
- Bioplastics will be all the rage. New biodegradable materials are replacing petrochemicals in plastic bags.
- Yahoo Inc.'s(YHOO) incumbent directors were re-elected by shareholders on Friday, although a sizeable number of votes were withheld for CEO Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock in a sign of investor discontent with the Web portal's board.

NY Times:
- Chief of Pets.com Is Back, Minus the Sock Puppet.
- Rising shipping costs spurred by gains in oil prices are likely to force manufacturers to locate factories closer to suppliers and consumers instead of looking for cheap goods abroad. The increase in shipping costs because of the higher price of oil is the equivalent of a 9% trade tariff, citing a May study by CIBC World Markets Inc. Higher shipping costs are likely to affect heavy manufacturing such as steel or furniture, which has led to a decline in Chinese steel exports to the US and a resurgence in home furnishings production in Virginia and North Carolina. Tesla Motors Inc. decided against making electric-vehicle components in Thailand and shipping them to Britain for installation, in favor of production nearer its San Carlos, California, headquarters.
- Billionaire Stephen Wynn, founder and CEO of Wynn Resorts Ltd.(WYNN), said his company didn’t “overreach” with its casino projects, including the planned $2.3 billion resort called Encore in Las Vegas.
- Richard X. Bove is one of the few analysts to predict the housing market blow-up. He is also one of the few whose advice would have made money for investors over the past year.

CBS:
- Al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri may be wounded, citing a letter it obtained from sources in Pakistan requesting a doctor for him. The letter describes Zawahiri as being in pain with infected injuries. The letter is dated July 29, the day after a US missile strike in northwest Pakistan that killed another top al-Qaeda official, Abu Khabab al-Masri, CBS said.

San Jose Mercury News:
- As some of Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies - especially chip makers - have recognized the enormous potential in the solar industry, the battle for supremacy is taking on David vs. Goliath proportions.

NY Post:
- New York’s Top 100 hedge-fund titans are getting flattened in the credit crunch. The high-flying traders - who were touted around the globe for their killer 2007 returns and $100 million paychecks - can't get out of the red in the first half of 2008, according to hedge-fund performance records obtained by The Post.

Washington Post:
- Republicans staged a revolt on the House floor yesterday to protest the lack of a vote on opening more land to oil drilling -- but this particular revolution was not televised. On the last day of the session before a five-week break, several dozen GOP lawmakers took to the floor shortly after the House adjourned and essentially refused to leave for more than five hours, even after -- as is customary during an adjournment -- the television cameras were turned off, the microphones were silenced and the lights were extinguished.

Business Week:
- The 15 Cars with the Best Gas Mileage.

The Detroit News:
- Just when you think you've got the presidential race figured out, something comes along to upend your carefully wrought conclusions. Gallup showed Obama leading by a statistically insignificant 45 percent to 44 percent as of July 31. That's the closest the race has been in Gallup all that month. Rasmussen had him down to 48 percent to 46 percent on the same day. The world tour bounce has begun to look like a bubble. And there is some evidence that the balance of enthusiasm has shifted and that young people -- who seemed to turn out and vote for Obama in unusually high numbers in the primaries and caucuses -- are no long so enthusiastic about him. The first bit of evidence comes from the July 10-13 ABC/Washington Post poll. It asked registered voters if they were "certain" to vote. Only 46 percent of voters under 30 said they were -- substantially lower than the 66 percent who said so in the ABC/Washington Post poll taken Feb. 28-March 2. These poll results suggest that something -- the rantings of the Rev. Wright or Obama's skinbacks on issues like Iraq and terrorist surveillance -- has dampened enthusiasm for him, particularly among the young. The hope that his candidacy would benefit from a historically unprecedented turnout of young voters seems more audacious than it did a short time ago.

Minneapolis Star Tribune:
- 11 cities seeking places to raise wind turbines. A focus on renewable energy is spurring wind energy projects from Anoka to East Grand Forks.

Peak Oil Debunked:
- Recently, the CFTC released an Interim Report arguing that speculation has not systematically driven the rise in crude oil prices. In the Oil Drum camp, this was greeted with a wave of high-fives and honking of party horns, as if it marked the end of the speculation debate. The debate has not ended, however. In fact, it has hardly begun, and will continue and intensify for a number of powerful, common-sense reasons:

Reuters:
- Chinese and foreign citizens wishing to protest during the Beijing Olympics must apply five days beforehand and not harm China's vaguely defined "national interests", a Games security official said.
- Newborn stock index Bespoke Investment Group is tracking stocks for companies that cater to parents of newborns, a market that could prove a growth spurt for some investors because of a recent mini-baby boom.
- The fifth tropical depression of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season formed in the northern Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, and was forecast to pass through key U.S. oil production areas before reaching Texas or Louisiana, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

AP:
- Iraq has invited contractors to bid for seven oil drilling and four gas well projects by September 30^th. Iraq’s Northern Oil Company will answer bidders’ questions in meetings on Aug. 13th and 20^th at its headquarters in Kirkuk.

Financial Times:
- A new system to overhaul insider trading investigations is due to be agreed as early as this week in the latest response from US regulators to growing concerns about the extent of illegal activity on global markets. Under the proposed measure, the nine US stock exchanges that now monitor insider dealing will cede their authority to two bodies, the New York Stock Exchange's regulatory arm and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which oversees broker-dealers. People involved in the discussions say this shift to a more centralized system should lead to faster and more efficient oversight of illegal activity at a time when the potential for abuse is becoming more widespread.
- While Russia has transformed itself since 1998, it is still wracked by serious weaknesses. While it has recovered some international influence it is far from re-establishing itself as a superpower.

TimesOnline:
- The rise of India's economy is often compared to the progress of an elephant - slow and plodding when compared with the dragon of China, but invested with a heavy sense of inevitability. In the past six months, however, the elephant has performed a disconcerting about-turn. The bad news has been unrelenting. The rupee has plunged amid fears that India's fiscal deficit is spiraling out of control. In response, the country's fragile coalition Government has made massive populist handouts in the run-up to a general election that must be held before May. Fitch, the ratings agency, recently downgraded the outlook on India's sovereign debt, taking it only one step from junk status.

Telegraph:
- UK businesses face biggest cash flow crisis in two decades. In what economists have described as a "clear recession warning", the spare cash available to British companies has fallen to the lowest level since the early 1990s. Companies are also digging into their credit facilities at the fastest rate since 1992, when the country was last in recession.

Globe and Mail:
- Hedge fund manager Barton Biggs has a glass-half-full view of markets mayhem. “The markets are going to make the right decisions in the long run,” he says, warming to the subject of his latest book, Wealth, War & Wisdom, in which he analyzes how stock markets behaved at key junctures of the Second World War. “But that doesn't mean that they have any kind of short-term wisdom, because there are all the momentum investing, commodity-trading fund and other crazies out there pushing them around.” As for the here and now, “I happen to think that we're probably going to have a pretty good snap-back,” says Mr. Biggs, 75. “The markets are trying to put in a bottom here. But whether that is the final bottom or just a bottom for a rally that takes the market up 10, 12, 13 per cent and then there's a lower low later on, we have to wait and see.”

Nikkei:
- Nippon Oil Corp. plans to produce 10,000 home-use fuel cells a year starting in April, 2009.

Wen Wei Po:
- A banking regulator urged lenders in Shanghai to tighten risk monitoring of property lending and large loans to corporate groups in the second half. Banks must prevent developers from obtaining loans with bogus down payments and false price quotes, he said. He also asked banks to tighten supervision of loans to corporate groups with lax governance, complex connected party relationships, poor financial health, insufficient information disclosure and those straying from their core businesses.
- So-called “underground” lending in China exceeds $1.5 trillion. Funding made available by unauthorized lenders including pawn shops and auction firms is thriving as banks tighten credit after a series of interest rate and reserve ratio increases. Smaller companies in the southern Pearl River Delta need an estimated 2 trillion yuan of capital. Inflation climbed to 7.9% in the first half of this year, from 4.48% for all of 2007.

Press Trust of India:
- India may require refiners to sell transport fuels blended with 20% ethanol by 2017. Indian oil companies have been selling fuels mixed with 5% ethanol since October 2007. India’s government wants to increase the biofuel ratio to 10% by October this year.

The Australian:
- Wealth in Australia falls the most since the 1982-83 recession. However, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner called on people tipping a recession to take a reality check, saying the economy was still in good shape, even though it was slowing. "It's crucial that we don't get spooked by one or two bad sets of figures," he said, ahead of the Reserve Bank board meeting tomorrow.

Weekend Recommendations
Barron's:
- Made positive comments on (CBI), (WAB), (SFY), (DIS), (BNI) and (EMC).
- Made negative comments on (LVS), (BTU) and (SBUX).

Citigroup:
- Reiterated Buy on (AIZ), target $80.

Night Trading
Asian indices are -1.0% to -.25% on avg.
S&P 500 futures -.05%.
NASDAQ 100 futures -.07%.

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

Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
- (DISH)/.60
- (ICE)/1.18
- (HUM)/1.17
- (APC)/1.77
- (HMA)/.11
- (PPS)/.42
- (PBI)/.67

Upcoming Splits
- None of note

Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
- Personal Income for June is estimated to fall .2% versus a 1.9% increase in May.
- Personal Spending for June is estimated to rise .4% versus a .8% gain in May.
- The PCE Core for June is estimated to rise .2% versus a .1% gain in May.

10:00 am EST
- Factory Orders for June are estimated to rise .7% versus a .6% gain in May.

Other Potential Market Movers
- The Challenger Job Cuts report and Pacific Crest Tech Forum could also impact trading today.

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