Style Outperformer:
Small-cap Value (-.02%)
Sector Outperformers:
Airlines (+1.42%), Restaurants (+.87%) and Retail (+.86%)
Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
UNFI, MEND, BJRI, SCSC, CRDC, SBNY, SYUT, DXPE, TCBI, QSII, GSIC, QGEN, BRLI, CSTR, GOOG, FUJI, FSYS, MNRO, SNDA, CHCO, PERY, RIMM, CHTT, ATE, RBA, RFV, KFY, BSI and ADC
Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
1) TRA 2) HL 3) MYL 4) XCO 5) MU
Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:
- Companies with the most hedge-fund ownership slid for the fifth time in six days, defying the rally spurred by the government's takeover of Fannie Mae(FNM) and Freddie Mac(FRE), as money managers sold shares to cover client redemptions, analysts said. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s(GS) index of the 49 most-common holdings of hedge funds lost 0.1 percent, led by Google Inc.(GOOG) and Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc.(POT), extending its drop since Aug. 28 to 8 percent. ``Smart money is selling on the rallies, and that's happening because of an expectation for a heavy redemption flow,'' said Peter Kenny, a managing director for institutional sales at Knight Equity Markets in Jersey City, New Jersey. ``It's amazing the lemming effect that develops in the top companies,'' said Peter Rup, chief investment officer at New York-based Orion Capital Management LLC, which invests in hedge funds. ``There's clearly a network of information flow among friends and families.'' All but seven stocks in Goldman's index have dropped in the last three months. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.(FCX), the world's largest publicly traded copper producer, and Petroleo Brasileiro SA(PBR), Brazil's state-controlled oil company, have both lost about 37 percent in U.S. trading during that period. The time of year also may contribute to the decline for stocks favored by hedge funds. ``Investors have annual redemption rights and you have to give 90 days notice, which means September is typically when that's done,'' Rup said.
- Google’s(GOOG) planned partnership with Yahoo! Inc.(YHOO) probably will survive government scrutiny, a Sanford C. Bernstein analyst said.
- The Australian dollar held losses after a government report showed home loans fell for a sixth month in July. The New Zealand currency declined as the nation may not recover from a recession this year. Both currencies dropped as the U.S. dollar gained to the highest level since October against the euro after a government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac boosted confidence in global financial markets.
- Stephen Schork, president of the Schork Report, Says Crude Oil May Fall to $70 a Barrel. (video)
- Crude oil fell in New York as the dollar rose against the euro, limiting investors' appetite for commodities. The U.S. currency strengthened to the highest since October 2007 as the government's takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac encouraged investors to move funds into the stock market. ``You're starting to see some money going into the securities market and coming out of commodities,'' said Tetsu Emori, a fund manager with Astmax Ltd. in Tokyo.
- Orange juice fell by the exchange limit, dropping the most in nine years, after Hurricane Ike was forecast to miss Florida, cutting the risk to groves recovering from past storms.
- Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, attacked Iran in a video posted on the Internet, accusing the country of letting the U.S. invade Afghanistan and Iraq. In the 90-minute Arabic-language video called ``Seven Years of Crusades,'' which was shown today on the Al-Jazeera television channel, al-Zawahiri said there was an ``Iranian-Crusade alliance that's targeting the Muslim world'' and that leaders in Tehran are ``collaborating with the Americans in their occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.'' The recording comes three days before the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.
- Wells Fargo & Co.(WFC), the California lender that skirted the subprime collapse, topped Citigroup Inc. by market value to become the third-most valuable U.S. bank.
- U.K. house prices dropped in August as the squeeze on mortgage lending pushed down sales to a record low, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said. The number of real-estate agents and surveyors saying prices fell exceeded those reporting gains by 81 percentage points, compared 83 percentage points in July, the group said today in London. Average sales per respondent in the past three months fell to 12.7, the least since the survey began in 1978.
- President George W. Bush said he'll withdraw as many as 8,000 troops from Iraq by February and simultaneously send additional forces to Afghanistan. Bush will announce his plan tomorrow in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington. The White House released the prepared text of his remarks today. ``While the enemy in Iraq is still dangerous, we have seized the offensive, and Iraqi forces are becoming increasingly capable of leading and winning the fight,'' Bush will say, according to the text. ``As a result, we have been able to carry out a policy of `return on success' -- reducing American combat forces in Iraq as conditions on the ground continue to improve.'' ``Afghanistan's success is critical to the security of America and our partners in the free world,'' Bush will say, according to the text. ``As we learned in Iraq, the best way to restore the confidence of the people is to restore basic security -- and that requires more troops.'' Bush's decision reflects recommendations of Army General David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, that were refined by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
- Investors should use currency options to guard against losses as India's rupee heads for the steepest slide since 1991, when a balance of payments crisis forced the nation to pawn its gold, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said. Investors should buy rupee put options granting the right to sell the currency against the dollar, said Vikas Agarwal, a strategist at the third-biggest U.S. bank. The rupee will fall to a two-year low by Dec. 31 as funds pull money out of emerging markets, he said.
Wall Street Journal:
- The last refuge for investment bankers is under siege. Fees in Asia are falling as stock and debt offerings evaporate and companies hold back on deals.
- Google Inc.(GOOG) will begin brokering some television ads on cable networks owned by General Electric Co.'s(GE) NBC Universal, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Web giant seeks to expand the reach of its nascent TV ad-selling business.
Forbes.com:
- Tech Trends For Growing Businesses.
CNNMoney.com:
- At least Michael Dell sees value in Dell (DELL). The company founder and CEO spent $100 million late last week to acquire 4.7 million shares, according to a Federal filing Monday.
- Gasoline prices continued to decline, easing for the eighth straight day, as Tropical Storm Hanna dumped heavy rain on the entire eastern coast of the United States, according to a nationwide survey of gas station credit card swipes.
Reuters:
- Aerospace groups braced for global disruption from a potentially lengthy strike at Boeing(BA) on Monday as one of the planemaker's biggest suppliers lost no time in cutting production and working hours.Three days after 27,000 machinists halted assembly at the world's top-selling planemaker, Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems suspended its 2008 financial guidance and said it was cutting volumes on certain Boeing products.
- The U.S. Justice Department has hired Sandy Litvack, who was its former antitrust chief and Walt Disney Co's (DIS) former vice chairman, to consult on its probe of Google Inc's (GOOG) search advertising deal with Yahoo (YHOO), a source close to the investigation said.
- Mexico cut its forecast for economic growth this year to 2.4 percent from 2.8 percent.
Financial Times:
- Royal Dutch Shell is to become the first western oil company to sign a deal with the Iraqi government since the US-led liberation of 2003, agreeing a plan to capture and use gas in the Basra region that could be worth up to $4bn.
- Barack Obama is set to meet Bill Clinton at the former president's foundation headquarters in Harlem on Thursday in their first face-to-face meeting since Mr Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the primary elections in June. The meeting comes as John McCain, the Republican candidate, moved into the lead in the polls for the first time in the campaign. Mr Clinton, the former two-term president, will offer advice to the Democratic nominee about how to deal with the coming 57 days before the election, amid Democratic worries about Mr Obama's shaky numbers in the polls. On Monday a Gallup-USA Today poll gave Mr McCain a double-digit lead at 54 per cent to Mr Obama's 44 per cent among "likely voters". Most analysts attributed Mr McCain's improving numbers to his selection of Sarah Palin, which has proved popular with voters well beyond the Republican Party's social conservative base.
TimesOnline:
- Alistair Darling is preparing to intervene to stimulate Britain's dormant housing finance market, according to senior government officials.
- Google(GOOG) has teamed up with John Malone, the media billionaire, and HSBC on a venture that will offer internet access to three billion people in Africa and other emerging markets as the US search engine continues to expand its presence across the Web.
Tuoi Tre:
-
Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Piper Jaffray:
- Rated (SBAC) Buy, target $40.
- Rated (AMT) Buy, target $50.
- Rated (CCI) Buy, target $42.
- Rated (EQIX) Buy, target $100.
- Rated (NIHD) Buy, target $70.
- Rated (USM) Sell, target $42.
Night Trading
Asian Indices are -2.25% to -.50% on average.
S&P 500 futures -.28%.
NASDAQ 100 futures -.35%.
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
- (PBY)/.08
- (AVAV)/.18
- (KFY)/.30
- (JW/A)/.51
- (CG)/1.41
Economic Releases
10:00 am EST
- Pending Home Sales for July are estimated to fall 1.5% versus a 5.3% gain in June.
- Wholesale Inventories for July are estimated to rise .7% versus a 1.1% gain in June.
Upcoming Splits
- None of note
Other Potential Market Movers
- The weekly retail sales reports, (OC) Investor Day, (CRA) analyst meeting, (NFX) analyst meeting, (MMM) investor day, (BBND) analyst meeting, (SRX) analyst meeting, (TXN) Mid-quarter Update, Wachovia Transport Conference, Deutsche Bank Tech Conference, Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare Conference and Lehman Financial Services Conference could also impact trading today.
Bloomberg:
- Bank and savings and loan insiders spent more money buying shares of their companies in May, June and July this year than in any previous three months in at least two decades, betting that financial institutions are bouncing back from the credit-market crunch. Insiders including bank directors and executives bought $296.2 million of their own stock in the period, according to data compiled by the Washington Service. That's the most since the research firm began tracking the data in November 1986.
- The US dollar rose to the highest level since October against the euro as the U.S. government's takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac boosted confidence in financial markets in the world's largest economy.
- OPEC has as much as 4 million barrels a day of spare production capacity and will boost output if it is needed, the group’s secretary-general said in a report. With investment of $160 billion in 120 new projects, this will rise to 5 million barrels a day by 2012, he said. Spending of $500 billion by 2020 will boost spare capacity to 9 million barrels a day.
- Spreads between interest-rate swaps and Treasury yields narrowed to the least in almost three months after the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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- Oppenheimer’s Gheit Says OPEC Won’t Cut Production. (video)
- Boeing Co.'s(BA) machinists, on the third day of a strike over job security and compensation, may be walking the picket lines for more than a month, if history and industry analysts prove any guide. The members of the Chicago-based planemaker's largest union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, have stopped work over three of the last six contracts.
- Currency traders are starting to take the British government at its word, putting the tumbling pound on course for the worst year since 1992. The pound is about 20 percent too strong against the dollar, even after falling more than 10 percent this year, according to New York-based International Foreign Exchange Concepts Inc., the world's biggest currency hedge-fund company.
- U.K. producer prices unexpectedly dropped by the most in at least 22 years in August after oil and raw material costs fell and economic growth stalled.
- Still Bullish on Stocks, Citigroup’s Levkovich Predicts 17% Gain.
- United Airlines parent UAL Corp. said it didn't file for bankruptcy, after a 2002 Chicago Tribune news report on the carrier's filing was mistakenly republished on a newspaper Web site. The shares fell as much as 76 percent before trading was halted for about 90 minutes, then recovered most of the decline. UAL trades between 10:55 a.m. and 11:08 a.m. New York time won't be canceled, the Nasdaq Stock Market said on its Web site.
- President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to pull back Russian troops from Georgian territory outside of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, while refusing to reconsider his decision to recognize the separatist regions' independence.
Wall Street Journal:
- Altria Agrees to Buy UST for $10.3 Billion.
- McAfee(MFE) Inc. is overhauling its security software to more rapidly identify malicious computer files, a technology shift that reflects a widening recognition that more needs to be done to stop cybercriminals.
- Critics Say Gates-Seinfeld Duo No Laughing Matter. Microsoft Ads Draw Attention, Not Praise; Missing the Creativity.
NY Times:
- Google Inc.(GOOG) applied for patent technology that allows it to provide Web users with data from computer servers and storage systems aboard barges at sea that are powered by ocean currents. The floating computer centers would let Google move data closer to people in regions where it’s too expensive or inefficient to build them on land, or to locations where existing networks have been damaged by natural disasters.
- MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel’s coverage of the election. After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Executives at the channel’s parent company, NBC Universal, had high hopes for MSNBC’s coverage of the political conventions. Instead, the coverage frequently descended into on-air squabbles between the anchors, embarrassing some workers at NBC’s news division, and quite possibly alienating viewers. Although MSNBC nearly doubled its total audience compared with the 2004 conventions, its competitive position did not improve, as it remained in last place among the broadcast and cable news networks. In interviews, 10 current and former staff members said that long-simmering tensions between MSNBC and NBC reached a boiling point during the conventions. “MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict,” one senior staff member observed. Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams, the past and present anchors of “NBC Nightly News,” have told friends and colleagues that they are finding it tougher and tougher to defend the cable arm of the news division. NBC Universal executives are also known to be concerned about the perception that MSNBC’s partisan tilt in prime time is bleeding into the rest of the programming day. On a recent Friday afternoon, a graphic labeled “Breaking News” asked: “How many houses does Palin add to the Republican ticket?” Mr. Griffin called the graphic “an embarrassment.”
- Senator Joe Biden, the Democratic vp nominee, said that he believes life begins at conception. Such a view contradicts the Democratic Party’s doctrine on abortion rights.
NY Post:
- NY Post Endorses John McCain for President.
InvestmentNews:
- The proliferation of mutual funds that rely on computers to select stocks is coming to an end.
ReadWriteWeb:
- NBC Drop Microsoft’s Silverlight for Adobe.
Google Blog:
- Google(GOOG) Starts Newspaper Archive Digitization Effort.
Financial Times:
- Growth in the Chinese motor market has slowed more rapidly than expected in recent months - and August car sales may have fallen by as much as 10 per cent year-on-year, according to preliminary data. Baosteel, the Chinese steelmaker, recently cited weakness in the Chinese motor sector as one of the main factors behind a recent drop in steel demand.
- Allianz SE, Europe’s biggest insurer, is examining the US as a potential market for growth. “I don’t think you can reach satisfactory growth numbers if you are not a substantial player in the US, citing CEO Diekmann. “From a currency point of view, and from what I see of some of our competitors in the US, this is not a bad time to look at the US market.
- Parametric Technologies(PMTC), a maker of computer-aided design and operational software for businesses, has hired banking advisers and is approaching potential bidders in an attempt to sell itself for more than $2bn, according to people with knowledge of the process.
BBC:
- UK home prices to drop 25%, Nationwide Chief says.