Style Outperformer:
Small-cap Value (+2.92%)
Sector Outperformers:
Airlines (+6.63%), Restaurants (+3.60%) and Retail (+3.07%)
Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
QSII, DRL, TIN, INT, TTI, SNP, KALU, PDC, ATI, IPCM, ROCK, FSYS, BECN, MIDD, ENOC, COGT, LPNT, DTSI, TISI, HANS, CLDN, HTGC, NATI, KNDL, ISIS, FRED, WCRX, SPP, LYV, CYD, MTA, HRL, CEP, NFG and NZT
Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
1) CPN 2) ATI 3) DECK 4) UBS 5) NUAN
Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:
- The US dollar headed for its biggest weekly gain against the yen in two months as oil extended declines from a record, supporting economic growth in the world's largest consumer of the fuel. The euro was on course for its fourth weekly decline, its worst losing streak since May 2007, after European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said risks to economic growth are ``materializing,'' reducing expectations policy makers will raise interest rates. The Australian dollar fell for a ninth day, its longest losing streak since 1980, as traders added to bets the nation's central bank will cut borrowing costs. ``Oil prices have turned out to be much more supportive of the dollar than I expected,'' said Masanobu Ishikawa, general manager of foreign exchange at Tokyo Forex & Ueda Harlow Ltd., Japan's largest currency broker. ``It does temporarily relieve some concern that the U.S. economy will weaken further. This is a plus for sentiment.'' A drop in the European currency below $1.53 signals ``a longer-term dollar bull phase,'' pointing to a further decline to $1.46, Kevin Edgeley, a technical analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in London, wrote in a research note yesterday.
- Gold fell for a fifth straight session, the longest losing streak since June 2007, as a rebound in the dollar eroded the appeal of the precious metal as an alternative investment. Silver also declined. ``If gold continues to trade under the 200-day moving average, you're going to have people selling left and right into the rallies,'' Zeman of LaSalle Futures said.
- The Australian dollar fell for a ninth day, its longest losing streak since 1980, on speculation the Reserve Bank of Australia will reduce borrowing costs from a 12- year high as a drop in consumer spending cools inflation. ``There is growing talk of RBA rate cuts and commodity prices are plunging,'' said Akifumi Uchida, deputy general manager of the marketing unit at Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co. in Tokyo. ``A selling scenario seems to be under way for the Aussie,'' he said. Traders are betting the Reserve Bank will lower borrowing costs by 97 basis points over the next 12 months, compared with the 32 points of cuts estimated two weeks ago, according to a Credit Suisse Group index based on interest-rate swaps.
- Toyota Motor Corp.(TM), the world's second-largest carmaker, rose most in two weeks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after the company reported better-than-expected earnings and reiterated its full-year forecast.
- Wheat production in Australia, forecast to be the world's third-largest exporter, may exceed a government prediction after rainfall in July and farmers sowed a record crop, ProFarmer Australia said.
- India, Asia's biggest supplier of soybean meal, may ship a record quantity next year after rain in the biggest growing regions encouraged increased planting, a producers' group said.
- Michael Metz, Oppenheimer Holdings Inc.'s chief investment strategist who cautioned that stocks were overvalued amid the exuberance of the late 1990s, died yesterday. He was 79.
- Sprint Nextel Corp.(S), the third-biggest U.S. wireless carrier, scrapped plans for a $3 billion offering of convertible preferred stock after failing to find the terms it sought.
Wall Street Journal:
- Rumors Drive Options Trading in King(KG), Marvell(MRVL).
- Pushing to put one of the biggest debacles of the credit crisis behind them, Citigroup Inc.(C) and Merrill Lynch & Co.(MER) agreed to buy back $17 billion in auction-rate securities.
- McCain, Obama release names of largest fundraisers.
NY Times:
- The UK Confronts Slowdown as Economy Nears Recession.
CNNMoney.com:
- Gas prices down 21 days in a row. The national average price for a gallon of gas slips to $3.849.
- Cars are getting more reliable, JD Power study shows.
Reuters:
- Borrowing one of nature's best designs, U.S. scientists have built an eye-shaped camera using standard sensor materials and say it could improve the performance of digital cameras and enhance imaging of the human body. The device might even lead to the development of prosthetic devices including a bionic eye, they said.
- A banking group has renewed its plea to the Securities and Exchange Commission to broaden a rule aimed at curbing abusive short selling and market manipulation. The American Bankers Association, a trade group which represents banks of all sizes, said on Thursday that distort-and-short campaigns push stock values below what market and bank conditions warrant. "At a time, when the economy is clearly under stress, the commission has a responsibility to assure that destructive practices such as abusive naked short selling are stopped," said the letter dated August 7. The SEC has said it will consider crafting a rule to crackdown on abusive short selling across the broader market.
- New York Community Bancorp (NYB) is actively looking for acquisitions, which could happen soon if it found the right partner to off-load assets to, said analysts at Morgan Stanley after meeting with the company's management.
- Billionaire Carl Icahn has been confirmed as a member of the board of Yahoo! Inc., as part of an agreement to drop his opposition to the Internet search company’s management.
Financial Times:
- Few people are more likely to need a holiday than Barack Obama. Yet as he heads off on Friday for his first week-long break since he launched his presidential bid 19 months ago, Mr Obama is dogged by rising angst about his campaign's direction. With polls showing him neck-and-neck with John McCain at a stage at which many Democrats expected he would be in the clear lead, they worry about the kind of stray image that helped to defeat John Kerry in 2004.
- Wal-Mart(WMT) , the world's largest retailer, says the new small Marketside grocery stores it is to launch this autumn could expand to a chain of more than 1,000 stores, delivering $10bn-plus in annual sales.
- One of Barack Obama's most important backers is in talks to become an adviser to the Renewable Fuels Association, the most powerful ethanol lobby in the US capital. Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate majority leader who has long been an influential champion of the ethanol industry, told the Financial Times about the move in an interview.
- Executives of large private equity firms believe they have found ways of overcoming US rules that make it difficult for their funds to buy large stakes in banks. This would position them to bolster the faltering sector without changes in regulations.
Nikkei English News:
- Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to develop about 1,000 electric-car recharging sites in the greater
Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Citigroup:
- Reiterated Buy on (WW), target $64.
- Reiterated Buy on (ARE), target $122.
- Reiterated Buy on (NUAN), target $24.
- Lowered (WMG) to Sell, target $7.
CSFB:
- Rated (AAPL) Outperform, target $200. Key factors are enabling Mac momentum to defy macro conditions. We believe Mac performance is due to several unique drivers that were not present in prior downturns. We anticipate that Apple will continue to grow at a multiple of the overall market for many years to come. iPhone economics have changed for the better. We provide a comparative analysis of the old, revenue sharing iPhone business model and the new, subsidy-based model. After considering the economic costs of iPhone unlocking, we find that the new business model is likely to be far more profitable for Apple over the long-term. Apple’s content strategy adds customer switching costs to the iPhone model. As new users invest in software applications and iTunes content for the iPhone, we contend that Apple is once again building material switching costs into its model.
- Rated (LXK) Underperform, target $25.
- Reiterated Outperform on (HLEX), lowered estimates, target $36.
Night Trading
Asian Indices are -.75% to +.25% on average.
S&P 500 futures +.21%.
NASDAQ 100 futures +.29%.
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/EPS Estimate
- (FNM)/-.69
- (MBI)/-1.37
- (EIX)/.75
Upcoming Splits
- None of note
Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
- Preliminary 2Q Non-farm Productivity is estimated to rise 2.5% versus a 2.6% gain in 1Q.
- Preliminary 2Q Unit Labor Costs are estimated to rise 1.4% versus a 2.2% increase in 1Q.
10:00 am EST
- Wholesale Inventories for June are estimated to rise .6% versus a .8% gain in May.
Other Potential Market Movers
- The Bank of America Specialty Pharma Conference could also impact trading today.
Bloomberg:
- John W. Henry & Co., the investment firm run by the Boston Red Sox baseball team's owner, is among hedge funds that suffered their worst drops in almost 18 months in July as oil and other commodities retreated from records. John W. Henry lost 17 percent on its JWH GlobalAnalytics fund, the firm said on its Web site. Altis Partners Ltd.'s $1 billion global futures program fell 18 percent, paring its gain for the year to 10 percent. London-based Man Group Plc'sAHL Diversified Futures Ltd., the computer program that trades about $25 billion of investments, dropped 5.5 percent through July 28, or a loss of about $1.37 billion in the month. Oil, natural gas, nickel and corn prices all tumbled in July, making it the worst month for the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Commodity Index in 28 years. Hedge funds overall declined 6.3 percent through the end of July, the worst performance in five years, the index shows.
- Crude oil was little changed after rising as much as $3.20 a barrel earlier as
- The euro touched the lowest in almost eight weeks against the dollar after European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said economic growth will slow, reducing expectations policy makers will raise interest rates. The European single currency also declined against the yen and the Canadian dollar as the ECB kept its main rate at a seven-year high of 4.25 percent.
- Canada's dollar fell for the sixth consecutive day, reversing earlier gains, as the U.S. dollar strengthened again most major currencies. The Canadian dollar has traded near a year low this week as economic growth slows and gold and oil drop from record highs. Commodities account for about half of the nation's exports, while the U.S. is Canada's biggest trading partner.
- Citigroup Inc.(C), the largest U.S. bank by assets, agreed to buy back or help clients unload $19.5 billion in auction-rate securities and pay a $100 million fine to settle U.S. regulatory claims it improperly saddled customers with untradeable bonds.
- Roche Holding AG may have to boost its bid for Genentech Inc. by almost 50 percent once test results show the cancer drug Avastin, sold by both companies, works against an expanding list of tumors.
- A Sudanese-born runner who is a member of an athletes group critical of China's policies toward Darfur was chosen to carry the U.S. flag in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
Wall Street Journal:
- Metropolitan areas across the US continue to get more diverse as minorities, especially Hispanics, increase their share of the population.
- Paul Tudor Jones and James Pallotta may end their association in the Tudor Investment Corp., raising questions about the future of their $18 billion dollar financial empire.
- Notwithstanding the hype about Barack Obama, here is where the presidential race stands: John McCain was within an average of 1.9% of his Democratic opponent in last week's daily Gallup tracking poll.
Lloyd’s List:
- Growth at Shanghai Port, the world’s second busiest box port, dropped to its lowest level in a decade last month, writes Sandra Tsui.
Diario de Noticias:
- Galp Energia SGPS SA, a Portuguese oil company, plans to invest about $10 billion to develop the Tupi offshore oil prospect in
Vedomosti:
- Construction in
Ziarul Financiar:
- The number of Romanian companies that declared bankruptcy in the first half doubled from the year-earlier period, as debt loads increased.
Business Standard:
- Inflation in India at 12.01% for the first time in 13 years.
Alittihad:
-