Thursday, January 22, 2009

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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Thursday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:

- Apple Inc.(AAPL) surpassed analysts’ estimates for profit and sales last quarter, overcoming the worst U.S. holiday shopping season in at least four decades. The shares jumped as much as 12 percent in late trading. First-quarter net income climbed 1.5 percent to $1.61 billion, or $1.78 a share, Apple said today. Sales rose 5.8 percent to $10.2 billion in the period ended Dec. 27. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimated profit of $1.39 and sales of $9.76 billion. Apple sold 4.36 million iPhones in the quarter, a record 22.7 million iPods and 2.52 million Macs. Analysts anticipated 5 million iPhones, 18.6 million iPods and 2.4 million Macs, said Piper Jaffray & Co.’s Gene Munster in Minneapolis. The lower-than-expected iPhone number isn’t cause for concern, said Andy Hargreaves, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Oregon. “The iPhone is still in the early stages of the product cycle, with a lot of growth left.” The first-quarter gross margin, the percentage of sales left over after taking out production costs, was 34.7 percent. That topped an estimate of 31.5 percent from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Apple said it’s investing some of its more than $28 billion in cash in engineering, marketing and customer- experience efforts, Oppenheimer said. The company will add 25 stores this year to its retail network, with half of those opening in international markets, he said. Cook, who filled in for Jobs during a monthlong leave in 2004, declined to say how Jobs was faring. Cook also wouldn’t say if he was prepared to succeed Jobs as CEO. “There is an extraordinary breadth and depth and tenure among the Apple executive team,” who lead more than 35,000 “wicked smart” employees, Cook said. “We believe we’re on the face of the earth to make great products, and that’s not changing.”

- JPMorgan Chase & Co.(JPM), the second- largest U.S. bank by assets, said Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon bought $11.5 million of stock last week after it plunged about 27 percent in the first 10 trading days of the year. The shares surged 25 percent today. Dimon, 52, purchased 500,000 shares in the New York-based lender for $22.93 apiece on Jan. 16, according to a regulatory filing. Heidi Miller, CEO of the treasury and securities services unit, bought $80,802 in stock the same day.

- Bank of America Corp.(BAC), the biggest U.S. lender by assets, gained 31 percent in New York trading after Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis and five directors bought more than 500,000 shares for at least $3 million. Lewis bought 200,000 shares of the bank at prices ranging from $5.98 to $6.06 yesterday, while director Robert Tillman also bought 200,000 shares for $5.77 to $5.78, according to a filing today. Temple Sloan Jr., lead director of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank, bought 41,800 shares. Buyers also included William Barnet III, Jacquelyn Ward and John Collins.

- The Markit iTraxx Australia index fell 12 basis points to 325 as of 11:23 am in Sydney, Westpac Banking Corp. data show.

- Iron ore contract prices may fall as much as 50 percent this year amid a slowdown in China, the world’s biggest consumer of the raw material, according to Australia’s richest woman and mining magnate Gina Rinehart. “We’re hearing 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent discounts to last year’s contract price,” Rinehart, who controls closely held Hancock Prospecting Pty, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. That compares with the average forecast of a 30 percent cut in a Bloomberg survey of 11 analysts last week.

- U.S. regulators sued a used-car salesman from West Texas for touting a $45 million hedge fund that they said was actually a Ponzi scheme. Rod Cameron Stringer misappropriated millions of dollars from investors since 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a federal lawsuit filed in Lubbock, Texas. The resident of Lamesa, 60 miles south of Lubbock, said he generated annual profits as high as 61 percent, according to the suit. “Stringer’s claims regarding the hedge fund and the high rates of return are completely bogus,” the regulator said in the suit. Besides running the fund, the agency said the 43-year-old worked as a bail bondsman, a tow-truck driver and a crop-dusting pilot. Stringer, doing business as RCS Hedge Fund, managed money from 31 investors, many elderly, according to the SEC’s complaint. The location of the remaining investor money “is presently unknown,” the agency said. Some was spent for a pool at his office, a horse-racing partnership, a boat, and mortgages for at least two houses, it said.

- Company debt defaults may increase from Russia to Brazil and India as the global recession curbs export revenue, pushes down local currencies and makes banks reluctant to refinance, according to Standard Chartered Plc. “Corporate debt is going to be one of the biggest issues in emerging markets in the next two years,” said Mohammed “Mo” Grimeh, New York-based head of trading for Standard Chartered, which gets 90 percent of its revenue from developing nations. “Some corporates have issued more debt than they can support.” Businesses across emerging markets have more than $218 billion of bonds and syndicated loans coming due in 2009, according to data compiled by Commerzbank AG. Russian companies need to repay $54 billion of debt, followed by Mexican issuers with $29 billion coming due and Brazilian firms with more than $24 billion. Currencies from all three nations have dropped more than 20 percent against the dollar in the past year, increasing the cost of servicing foreign-currency obligations. The “extremely high” level of corporate debt sales over the past several years and approaching maturities are “a source of concern,” Grimeh, 42, said in a Jan. 20 interview at the U.K. bank’s New York office. Emerging-market companies sold $119 billion of debt in 2006, $95 billion in 2007 and $38 billion last year, according to Commerzbank. So far this year, debt sales have totaled $4.6 billion.

- South Korea’s economy shrank a larger-than-expected 5.6 percent last quarter, the biggest decline since the Asian financial crisis a decade ago as exports, business investment and consumer spending plunged. The contraction followed growth of 0.5 percent in the third quarter and was more than twice the 2.1 percent drop forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 10 economists. The economy shrank 3.4 percent from a year ago, the central bank said in Seoul today.

- China’s economy expanded 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter, the slowest pace in seven years, dragging down growth across Asia and increasing pressure for more stimulus measures as exports plunge. “It’s an astonishingly steep slowdown,” said Paul Cavey, an economist with Macquarie Securities in Hong Kong. “We haven’t yet seen all of the pain.” The economy’s “implosion” poses a threat to the Communist Party’s rule and increases the likelihood that the government will devalue the yuan, prompting a trade war, according to Albert Edwards, a London-based global strategist for Societe Generale SA. Exports will decline 6 percent this year, down from a 17.2 percent gain in 2008, according to Fitch Ratings. Taiwan’s exports to China plunged 44 percent in December, Korea’s dropped 30 percent, and those from Australia declined 25 percent, Chinese figures show. Japan reported today that its shipments to China plummeted 35.5 percent. “Localized unrest” may rise sharply this year, said Wang Tao, China economist at UBS AG in Beijing, adding that as many as 10 million people may lose their jobs in export industries, along with another 5 million in construction. A sagging property market makes a quick economic rebound less likely. House prices across 70 cities dropped for the first time on record in December and construction will contract 30 percent this year, according to Hong Kong-based Macquarie Securities property analyst Eva Lee. Economic growth may weaken to 2 percent in 2009, the slowest pace in at least 30 years, according to Ryan Atkinson, chief market analyst at New York-based hedge-fund manager Balestra Capital Ltd. “There’s an extraordinary amount of excess capacity and there’s no way the world can absorb the amount of goods they are set up to produce,” said Atkinson.

- Container-shipping lines are about to receive a surge of new vessels just as world trade heads for its first decline since 1982. Ships with a combined capacity of 3.9 million cargo-boxes are due for delivery by the end of 2010, a third more than in the past two years, according to AXS-Alphaliner data. Meanwhile, AP Moeller-Maersk A/S, Neptune Orient Lines Ltd. and other shippers are cutting trips and slashing rates on waning demand. The glut stems from optimism in 2007, when record global trade and booming Chinese exports sparked orders for ships, which typically take two or three years to be delivered.


Wall Street Journal:

- Troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston didn't look much like a candidate for aid from the Treasury Department's bank bailout fund last fall. The Treasury had said it would give money only to healthy banks, to jump-start lending. But OneUnited had seen most of its capital evaporate. Moreover, it was under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use. Nonetheless, in December OneUnited got a $12 million injection from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. One apparent factor: the intercession of Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful head of the House Financial Services Committee. Mr. Frank, by his own account, wrote into the TARP bill a provision specifically aimed at helping this particular home-state bank. And later, he acknowledges, he spoke to regulators urging that OneUnited be considered for a cash injection.

- The government of the United Arab Emirates is tightening its media laws amid a slew of negative headlines about the country's economy and corporate scandals in Dubai. The Persian Gulf state's Federal National Council passed the draft of a new media law on Tuesday, replacing the 28-year-old Publications Law, said Ibrahim Al Abed, director general of the National Media Council.

- The Senate overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to confirm Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, setting aside concerns from some Republicans that she had done too little to distance herself from her husband's fund-raising activities.

- Raymond James Financial Inc.'s (RJF) fiscal first-quarter net income rose 8.6% as the company reported a drop in interest expenses, offsetting falling revenue and commissions. Shares surged 17.5% to $19 in after-hours trading as results came in above analysts' estimates.

- The U.S. Export-Import Bank, hoping to alleviate the effects of the credit crunch, plans to boost its guarantees for Boeing Co.(BA) jetliner sales by almost 50%, to as much as $9 billion this year.

CNBC.com:
- The big banks are akin to the House That Jerks Built. First they loaded up on arcane and obtuse securitizations of millions of mortgages infected with a sliver of subprime risk. Then they profited on fear by selling credit default swaps that promise a payoff if a company goes belly-up on its bonds--even if you never held the bonds in the first place. Now they pay the price of frightfulness. Credit swaps on the banks' own bonds are wildly inflated, raising their cost of selling debt. News headlines tell us the defaults are spreading from home loans to other kinds of debt: commercial real estate, credit cards, car loans, college loans and on and on. But it is difficult to distinguish between justifiable alarm and overdone, outright panic. If rising defaults are killing the banks’ business and cutting off their cash flow, that is a true financial crisis. Yet if, instead, the defaults really aren’t that high and it is merely investors’ fear of further writeoffs, that is an accounting crisis. (The vast majority of the huge charges have been non-cash items reflecting the dire outlook for on-the-books valuations, not an actual hemorrhaging of real cash.) So how bad is it really?

NY Times:

- The global economic slump is spreading across Asia, where countries depend on manufacturing for a far greater share of economic output than Western countries do.

- Amid the din of naysayers who insist that newspapers are on the verge of death, a new company wants to start dozens of new ones — with a twist. The Printed Blog, a Chicago start-up, plans to reprint blog posts on regular paper, surrounded by local ads, and distribute the publications free in big cities.


BusinessWeek:

- The Best Cities for Tech Jobs.

- The end of oil will be met with some resistance. There are many vested interests that would like to see our dependence continue. However, that resistance will be no match for the economic and strategic pressure aligned against it.


CNNMoney.com:
- In tough times, for-profit school businesses such as Apollo Group(APOL), DeVry(DV), ITT Educational Services(ESI) and Strayer Education(STRA) have traditionally fared well, as more workers, including the newly unemployed, look to enroll in classes to upgrade their skills.


Forbes:

- 10 Things We’re Still Buying.


Politico:

- 10 Dems Obama should watch out for.


All Things Digital:

- Google (GOOG) has expanded its YouTube eCommerce program, which lets users “click-to-buy” products related to the video they’re watching on YouTube, by extending the offers to viewers in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands; they had previously been limited to U.S. and U.K. users. And instead of just adding an affiliate link to Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes or to Amazon (AMZN) at the bottom of the video, YouTube is now featuring the links on transparent overlays that pop up early in the clip.


Reuters:

- A proposal issued in the final days of the Bush administration to expand offshore drilling in previously banned areas will move forward under the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, an Interior Department spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday. Hugh Vickery, a department spokesman, said the department has been notified by the White House that it will be able to proceed with a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic and Pacific waters for oil and natural gas drilling. The preliminary plan would authorize 31 energy exploration lease sales between 2010 and 2015 for tracts along the east coast and off the coasts of Alaska and California. The Interior Department estimates that the Outer Continental Shelf holds 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that have yet to be discovered. It is possible U.S. offshore areas, which have not been explored in 25 years, could contain more oil and gas. Separately, Vickery said the department's plan to develop oil shale fields in the western United States would also continue.

- General Motors Corp (GM) said on Wednesday it had received a delayed payment of $5.4 billion under the emergency funding provided by the U.S. government to keep it in business.

- Network-equipment maker F5 Networks Inc (FFIV) reported first-quarter earnings that met market estimates, and its second-quarter outlook was largely above expectations, sending its shares up 9.1% percent in extended trading.


Financial Times:
- Dick Parsons, former chief executive of Time Warner, was last night named to replace Sir Win Bischoff as chairman of Citigroup(C), after the US bank’s fortunes failed to recover despite a $300bn government bail-out in November. Mr Parsons, who was Citi’s lead director and has been on the board since 1996, immediately urged the Obama administration not to nationalize the country’s ailing banks and called for the creation of a government- controlled “bad bank” to buy toxic assets. He told the Financial Times the new administration should replicate the Resolution Trust Corporation, the “bad bank” charged with buying assets from failed savings and loans companies in the 1980s and 1990s. “I lived through the first crisis,” said Mr Parsons, who ran Dime Bank, a small lender, between 1991 and 1995. “I remember one of the keys to bottoming out of the crisis was the presence of the RTC…We now need something along those lines.” Mr Parsons, who is close to Barack Obama, suggested that banks that sold assets to the new entity – an “aggregator bank” – should be required to use some of the proceeds for loans to companies and individuals. But he argued that the nationalization of troubled financial institutions would be misguided.


Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
RBC Capital:

- Rated (ELN) Underperform, target $4.


Night Trading
Asian Indices are +.50% to +1.50% on average.
S&P 500 futures +.51%.
NASDAQ 100 futures +1.50%.


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Earnings of Note
Company/EPS Estimate
- (LUV)/.05

- (UNP)/1.24

- (BBT)/.51

- (BAX)/.89

- (CMA)/.30

- (SHW)/.53

- (ED)/.69

- (LMT)/1.91

- (UNH)/.78

- (KEY)/.04

- (IGT)/.27

- (MTB)/1.16

- (ESI)/1.42

- (STI)/.03

- (ABC)/.69

- (EXC)/1.03

- (FITB)/.00

- (IBKR)/.53

- (COF)/.29

- (AMD)/-.55

- (WFR)/.61

- (FII)/.50

- (GOOG)/4.96

- (ISRG)/1.27

- (MSFT)/.49

- (AVT)/.66

- (EAT)/.19

- (MSCC)/.35


Economic Releases

8:30 am EST

- Housing Starts for December are estimated to fall to 605K versus 625K in November.

- Building Permits for December are estimated to fall to 600K versus 615K in November.

- Initial Jobless Claims for last week are estimated to rise to 543K versus 524K the prior week.


10:00 am EST

- The House Price Index for November is estimated to fall 1.2% versus a 1.1% decline in October.


11:00 am EST

- Bloomberg consensus estimates call for a weekly crude oil inventory build of +1,400,000 barrels versus a +1,144,000 barrel build the prior week. Gasoline supplies are expected to rise by +1,800,000 barrels versus a +2,068,000 barrel gain the prior week. Distillate supplies are estimated to rise by +500,000 barrels versus a +6,346,000 barrel increase the prior week. Finally, Refinery Utilization is estimated to fall by -.5% versus a .66% rise the prior week.


Upcoming Splits
- None of note


Other Potential Market Movers
- The weekly MBA mortgage applications report, (JBL) Shareholders Meeting, (NAV) Analyst Meeting, (MOH) Investor Day, (DRI) Analyst Meeting, (APD) Shareholders Meeting and Bank of America REIT Summit could also impact trading today.


BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are higher, boosted by financial and technology stocks in the region. I expect US equities to open modestly higher and to strengthen into the afternoon, finishing higher. The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into the day.

Stocks Finish at Session Highs, Boosted by Financial, REIT, Technology and Energy Shares

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In Play

Stocks Soaring into Final Hour on Less Economic Pessimism, Declining Financial Sector Pessimism, Short-Covering

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio is higher into the final hour on gains in my Technology longs, Biotech longs and Medical longs. I covered all of my (QQQQ)/(IWM) hedges and some of my (EEM) short today, thus leaving the Portfolio 100% net long. The tone of the market is very bullish as the advance/decline line is substantially higher, almost every sector is rising and volume is below average. Investor anxiety is above average. Today’s overall market action is bullish. The VIX is falling 15.7% and is elevated at 47.72. The ISE Sentiment Index is low at 90.0 and the total put/call is above average at .96. Finally, the NYSE Arms has been running around average most of the day, hitting .93 at its intraday peak, and is currently .57. The Euro Financial Sector Credit Default Swap Index is rising 5.52% today to 120.33 basis points. This index is up from a low of 52.66 on May 5th, but down from 157.81 on Sept. 16th. The North American Investment Grade Credit Default Swap Index is rising 1.88% to 224.84 basis points. The TED spread is falling .55% to 101 basis points. The TED spread is now down 365 basis points in just over three months. The 2-year swap spread is rising 2.04% to 68.63 basis points. The Libor-OIS spread is falling 1.40% to 92 basis points. The 10-year TIPS spread, a good gauge of inflation expectations, is up 2 basis points to .58%, which is down 212 basis points in just over six months and at the lowest level since Bloomberg record-keeping began in August 1998. The 10-year TIPS spread bottomed at .65% in October 1998 during the Asian financial crisis and at 1.24% in October 2001 during the technology bubble-bursting meltdown. The 3-month T-Bill is yielding .11%, which is up 1 basis point today. Market-leading stocks are especially strong today. The sharp reversal higher in shares of (USB) and (BAC) were catalysts for the 12% surge in the (XLF) today. The surge in oil, sell-off in bonds and strengthening of the euro indicate economic fears are subsiding a bit. (AAPL) reports after the close today. I suspect they will exceed estimates and lower forward guidance. This should be priced into shares at current levels and any initial kneejerk sell-off will likely be short-lived. Nikkei futures indicate an +180 open in Japan and DAX futures indicate an +89 open in Germany tomorrow. I expect US stocks to trade mixed-to-higher into the close from current levels on short-covering, diminishing economic pessimism and declining financial sector worries.

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

- Almost 70 percent of Chinese readers rated U.S. President Barack Obama’s inaugural address “a masterpiece,” in an online poll by the country’s biggest Web portal. Make that a censored masterpiece. The Chinese version of Obama’s speech posted by Sina.com, with poll questions embedded at the top, did not contain a reference to fighting Communism nor a paragraph about leaders who keep power by silencing dissent.

- Hedge-fund investors withdrew a record $152 billion in the fourth quarter as the industry posted its worst returns in almost two decades, according to Hedge Fund Research Inc. Global assets dropped to $1.4 trillion at the end of the year, the same level as 2006 and $525 billion less than a peak of $1.93 trillion in June, the Chicago-based firm said in a statement today.

- A proposed change to bankruptcy law to allow judges to reduce homeowners’ mortgages may boost the capital needs of banks and insurers by hundreds of billions of dollars, First Pacific Advisors LLC’s Julian Mann said. The issue, identified by investors such as Mann and analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co., stems from language buried in the more than one hundred pages of prospectuses for many “prime jumbo” and “Alt-A” home-loan securities. Some of the contracts state that bankruptcy-related losses greater than an amount sometimes as little as $100,000 get allocated equally among all investors in bonds backed by the loan pools, rather than lower-ranking debt first. Holders such as banks and insurers of senior classes may see their payments cut or interrupted, potentially forcing writedowns and ratings downgrades. That, in turn, could raise their capital needs.

- China’s economy faces an “extremely sharp” slowdown this year that will trail most economists’ growth forecasts, according to Balestra Capital’s Ryan Atkinson. Declining electricity output and tumbling exports are two signals China’s economic growth may slow to as low as 2% in 2009, said Atkinson, chief market analy6st at the NY-based hedge-fund manager. That compares with the 7.9% expansion forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey.

- Brad Golding, manager of CRC Income Products Short Only Fund, more than doubled his investors’ money in 2008. They responded by pulling most of their cash from the Christofferson, Robb & Co. hedge fund in the final two months of the year. Assets in the Short Only fund declined to $35 million at year-end from as much as $145 million on Oct. 31, according to a letter to clients from Golding, 44. The drop reflects how the global credit crunch has buffeted even top-performing fund managers as potential clients shun risk-taking while current investors seek to raise cash.


NY Times:

- Police Departments Look for More Fuel-Cutting Cars.


Finextra.com:

- Continuing to provide index solutions that better meet the changing needs of the investing public, Standard & Poor's Index Services today announced the launch of the S&P CDS U.S. Indices. The Indices are designed to measure the performance of the approximately $29 trillion(1) (notional) Credit Derivatives Market.


Morningstar:

- The Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund Index lost 10.3% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 22.2% for the year, wiping out the last two years of gains. The index bounced back slightly after extreme market illiquidity and volatility in January and March, but since May, hedge funds have been on a steady decline. Massive losses in September and October of 7.9% and 9.8%, respectively, quashed any hope of salvaging the year, even though it ended on a positive note - December posted a 2.1% gain.


Journal Register:

- The new Obama administration circulated a draft executive order Wednesday that calls for closing the controversial detention center at Guantanamo Bay within a year and halting any war crimes trials in the meantime. While some of the detainees currently held at Guantanamo would be released, others would be transferred elsewhere and later put on trial under terms to be determined. There are an estimated 245 detainees currently held at Guantanamo, out of some 800 who were sent there during the Bush administration. The order circulated as the judge in one war crimes case agreed to Obama's request to suspend proceedings pending a 120-day review.


Boston Globe:

- Boston City Hall, the public library, and police headquarters are joining an energy-management network that will pay the city to reduce the buildings' electricity use during peak demand times, officials are expected to say today. Under the contract with EnerNOC Inc., a Boston-based company that helps customers manage electricity usage, the city also will have access to software that will allow it to analyze and streamline electricity use, potentially further reducing costs.


Crain’s NY Business:

- Avon Products Inc.(AVP) may be better positioned to withstand economic weakness than other cosmetics makers, an analyst said Tuesday.


Miami Herald:

- What if you didn't have a separate work computer to deal with anymore? Instead, you and your co-workers would use personal laptops to access work files and software -- without having to download anything on your computer. It's part of the workplace future that Citrix Systems(CTXS) and Intel(INTC) are working to make a reality.


Silicon Alley Insider:

- Apple(AAPL) Earnings Preview: How Are Sales? How Is Steve?


Reuters:
- Hours after taking office, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered military prosecutors in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals to ask for a 120-day halt in all pending cases and a judge granted the request on Wednesday in the case against a young Canadian. When defence lawyers did not oppose the move, a judge froze the proceedings against Canadian Omar Khadr, who was captured at age 15 and is accused of murdering a U.S. soldier with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan. Another judge was expected to rule as early as Wednesday in the death penalty case against five prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 hijacked plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Obama's order to the prosecutors was issued several hours after his swearing-in on Tuesday and if all the continuances are granted it would halt proceedings against 21 prisoners.

- Oil demand may never return to growth in the United States, Europe and parts of Asia, easing the strain on long-term supplies and prices as emerging countries burn ever more fuel. The surge in oil to a record near $150 a barrel last year heightened concern the world will run out of crude and supply will start to dwindle -- a theory known as "peak oil". Now a deepening recession and oil price collapse have raised the issue of whether demand, not supply, is nearing its peak. "There is a reasonable likelihood that OECD oil demand has peaked," said Peter Davies, former chief economist at BP Plc who was in charge of preparing BP's annual Statistical Review of World Energy, a standard reference work.

Bear Radar

Style Underperformer:
Mid-cap Value (+.46%)

Sector Underperformers:
Airlines (-6.76%), Homebuilders (-3.58%) and Semis (-2.04%)

Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume:
USB, NXY, WFR, TYC, HBHC, SYNT, FCFS, EZPW, UAUA, MELI, CSH, BLK, AF, COH and COF

Stocks With Unusual Put Option Activity:
1) USB 2) UAUA 3) SHW 4) NTRS 5) AMR