Stocks Sharply Lower into Final Hour on Global Growth Concerns, Credit Market Angst, Earnings Worries

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio is slightly lower into the final hour on losses in my Medical longs and Biotech longs. I added to my (IWM)/(QQQQ) hedges and then covered some of them today, thus leaving the Portfolio 75% net long. The tone of the market is very negative as the advance/decline line is substantially lower, most sectors are declining and volume is heavy. Investor anxiety is historically elevated. Today’s overall market action is bearish. The VIX is rising 15.2% and is historically elevated at 78.26. The ISE Sentiment Index is low at 113.0 and the total put/call is very high at 1.29. Finally, the NYSE Arms has been running very high most of the day, hitting 10.3 at its intraday peak, and is currently 1.07. The Euro Financial Sector Credit Default Swap Index is rising 4.3% today to 119.08 basis points. This index is up from a low of 52.66 on May 5^th, but down from 157.81 on Sept. 16^th. The North American Investment Grade Credit Default Swap Index is gaining 6.3% to 224.36 basis points. The TED spread is rising 3.2% to 265 basis points. The TED spread is now down 199 basis points in about two weeks. The 2-year swap spread is rising 6.8% to 125.25 basis points. The Libor-OIS spread is rising 1.9% to 258 basis points. The 10-year TIPS spread, a good gauge of inflation expectations, is falling 22 basis points to .72%, which is down 191 basis points in about four months and at the lowest level since Bloomberg records began in August 1998. While stocks are meaningfully lower again today, the action is likely very frustrating to the many bears given the plunges in overseas markets. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some more short-covering into the close. As well, the odds of another significant global response by Monday are likely pretty high. The NYSE Arms hit an extraordinarily high level this morning, a spike that had been missing from prior capitulatory-type sell-offs. Nikkei futures indicate an +41 open in Japan and DAX futures indicate an +70 open in Germany on Monday. I expect US stocks to trade higher into the close from current levels on short-covering, lower commodity prices and bargain-hunting.

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut oil production targets for the first time in almost two years as the group battles to slow a collapse in prices. OPEC decided to lower supply by 1.5 million barrels a day from November, oil ministers said today at the end of a meeting at the group's Vienna's headquarters. ``OPEC has offered the market all the ammunition they had,'' said Robert Laughlin, senior broker at MF Global Ltd. in London. ``With the bearish economic outlook and manufacturing in freefall this accord is not good enough'' to revive prices, he said. ``I don't like the cut in production,'' U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said from his home in Scotland, adding that OPEC has a crucial role to play in the recovery of the world economy. ``The high oil prices from the past year contributed to the slowdown in demand and the subsequent downturn in the economy,'' White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in a statement, which also criticized OPEC's policy of restricting supply.

- Home resales in the U.S. rose more than forecast in September, aided by foreclosure-driven declines in prices that made properties more affordable. Purchases of existing homes jumped 5.5 percent last month to a 5.18 million annual pace, the highest level in a year, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. Sales rose 1.4 percent compared with a year earlier, the first year-over-year increase since November 2005. The number of previously owned unsold homes on the market at the end of September represented 9.9 months' worth at the current sales pace, the fewest since February and down from 10.6 months' at the end of the prior month.

- Foreclosures Help Housing Market Find a Bottom. Home sales are booming once again in Prince William County, Virginia, an area hit hard by the housing bust.

- Russia's ruble fell to the lowest level in 20 months versus the dollar today as oil slumped, raising the prospect of the country's first budget deficit in a decade. The currency's decline challenges central-bank efforts to support the ruble by spending its reserves, the world's third largest. Russia's budget for 2009 breaks even based on an average oil price of $70 a barrel, according to the Finance Ministry. The currency has fallen almost 9 percent against the dollar since Aug. 8, when Russian tanks and troops invaded Georgia in a dispute over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Investors have pulled $63 billion out of the country since then, according to UniCredit SpA.

- Scrap copper's discount to new metal widened in the past month as the slowing construction industry sapped demand, according to Metalsco Inc. Birch-Cliff No. 2 copper scrap, a benchmark product, is trading at 46 cents below the price of new metal, said Bret Tauben, vice president for copper at St. Louis-based Metalsco. That compares with a discount of 23 cents a month ago, he said.

- India's rupee dropped for an eleventh week, the longest losing streak since December 2005, as the nation's benchmark share index plunged the most in four years on signs global economies are headed for a recession. The currency weakened past 50 per dollar for the first time earlier as the Reserve Bank of India cut the economic growth outlook for the year ending March 31 to as little as 7.5 percent from an earlier estimate of 8 percent.

- Russia's Micex Stock Exchange suspended trading at 2:10 p.m. until next week after shares slumped. The next session will start on Oct. 28, Alexei Gerasyuk, a spokesman for the Moscow bourse, said by telephone.

- The U.S. government imposed sanctions on Russian, Chinese and Venezuelan companies for supplying what it said were materials used in making weapons of mass destruction to Iran, North Korea and Syria.

- The benchmark index for U.S. stock options soared to the highest intraday level in its 18-year history as stocks tumbled around the world on concern that the global economy is in recession. The VIX, as the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index is known, jumped 16 percent to 78.36 at 10:25 a.m. in New York after earlier rising as high as 89.53.

- PNC Financial Services Group Inc.(PNC), Pennsylvania's biggest bank, plans to buy National City Corp. for about $5.2 billion in stock after receiving U.S. Treasury funds.

Wall Street Journal:

- How’s Obama Going to Raise $4.3 Trillion? The most troublesome tax increases in Barack Obama's plan are not those we can already see but those sure to be announced later, after the election is over and budget realities rear their ugly head.

NY Times:
- Washington is pushing measures to help hard-pressed homeowners, but some Wall Street investors are pushing back. Hedge funds are fighting proposals to ease the terms of home mortgages, arguing that such a move would hurt their investments, The New York Times’s Vikas Bajaj and Barry Meier write. Two funds recently warned mortgage companies that they might take action if the companies participated in government-backed plans to renegotiate delinquent loans in a way that undercut the funds’ interests. In letters sent to banks and others, Greenwich Financial said that it was particularly concerned about the impact of a relatively new government program, Hope for Homeowners. That plan, which Congress approved over the summer, allows some borrowers to refinance their mortgages into fixed-rate loans with terms up to 30 years.

Reuters:
- European Central Bank council member Ewald Nowotny said the bank has room to lower borrowing costs further. He said that it’s sometimes good for central banks to act in a coordinated way, but sometimes good for central banks to act in a coordinated way, but sometimes also necessary for a central bank to lower borrowing costs on its own. The global financial market turmoil should be past the worst, said Nowotny said.

- The U.S. government is expected to shortly announce a list of about 20 banks in the next round of companies receiving capital injections under a $700 billion rescue package, according to a source familiar with the U.S. Treasury Department's thinking.

- The U.S. Treasury Department is closely studying how it could give relief to bond and mortgage insurance companies under a $700 billion financial services rescue package, two sources familiar with the deliberations said on Friday.

Economic Times:

- Tata Motors Ltd. cut production of medium and heavy commercial vehicles by as much as 50%. The company is “calibrating” the production of commercial vehicles because of slowing demand. Tata Motors is India’s largest makers of trucks and buses.

Bear Radar

Style Underperformer:
Large-cap Value (-3.15%)

Sector Underperformers:
Oil Service (-8.39%), I-Banks (-8.28%) and Construction (-7.51%)

Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume:
IDXX, WOFF, AVID, CETV, IIT, GNI, ZMH, UBB and EWY

Stocks With Unusual Put Option Activity:
1) BUD 2) HOV 3) IR 4) VMC 5) SNV

Bull Radar

Style Outperformer:
Small-cap Value (-2.71%)

Sector Outperformers:
Airlines (-1.21%), Homebuilders (-1.68%) and Semis (-1.74%)

Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
IPCR, COLM, SIAL, STMP, INSU and DV

Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
1) AGN 2) SYNA 3) PCLN 4) JNPR 5) ATVI

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