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Thursday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:

- Visa Inc.(V), the world’s largest electronic payments network, said profit rose 35 percent as more consumers outside the U.S. used credit and debit cards. Visa rose 7.9 percent to $53 in New York trading at 5:18 p.m. after the company affirmed previous profit targets.

- Cisco Systems Inc.(CSCO), the largest maker of networking equipment, expects sales to fall as much as 20 percent this quarter, more than analysts projected, as orders deteriorate. The shares lost 2.7 percent in late trading.

- OPEC oil supply cuts may not be enough to counter falling industrial demand, requiring reductions by non-OPEC producers to restore balance to the market, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said today. January output must be curtailed by another 1.1 million barrels a day to reduce a surplus, commodity analysts Giovanni Serio and Jeffrey Currie said in a report. About 600,000 barrels a day will probably have to come from non-OPEC producers, with another 500,000 from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. “Prices will have to remain under pressure in the near term to force non-OPEC producers to cut supply,” they said.

- The International Energy Agency, an energy policy adviser to 28 nations, is likely to reduce its 2009 oil demand forecast again, following changes to International Monetary Fund economic predictions, Newedge USA LLC said. In its January report, the Paris-based IEA forecast world consumption will fall by 510,000 barrels a day in 2009 to 85.3 million barrels a day, revising December’s prediction of a 400,000 barrel-a-day increase. High oil prices earlier last year, coupled with a slowing world economy, have led consumers to use less fuel, such as gasoline and fuel oil. The 0.6 percent reduction currently predicted by the IEA would be the first back-to-back contraction in oil demand since 1983. Demand fell 0.3 percent in 2008, according to the IEA. Newedge analysts Halff and Veronique Lashinski said in their report, dated Feb. 3, that global oil demand “could contract by as much as 1.3 million barrels a day this year, versus our earlier forecast of a 600,000 barrel a day contraction.”

- Corn prices fell to a seven-week low, extending the longest slump since October, on speculation that the U.S. recession is slowing demand for grain used to make ethanol and feed livestock.

- Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and his Alliance for Climate Protection say clean-coal technology is a fantasy. Peabody Energy Corp., the biggest U.S. coal producer, says another prominent Democrat has pledged to make the technology a reality: President Barack Obama. The Gore-Obama split illustrates a growing debate in the U.S. as the new president attempts to deliver on his promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the country 80 percent by 2050. Depending on who’s speaking, coal is either the villain or part of the solution.

- New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has fallen behind Republican challenger Christopher Christie in his quest for a second term, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Christie, 46, a former U.S. attorney, leads Corzine 44 percent to 38 percent, reversing a 42 percent to 36 percent lead for the Democrat in a Nov. 19 Quinnipiac poll. Half of New Jersey voters surveyed disapprove of Corzine’s performance.

- Speculative trading in commodity markets has affected prices, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission told Congress, departing from the views of the agency’s prior chief. The effect of trading by speculators, who don’t produce or take actual delivery of a commodity, has been “demonstrated in the commodity futures markets during the past several years,” Gary Gensler said in a Jan. 26 letter to Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat. The letter was posted online today by Levin’s staff. Crude oil futures prices rose to a record $147.27 a barrel in July, prompting calls from Congress for limits on speculative trading. Participants in such trading include groups investing in the market through index funds, such as pension funds and endowments. The growth in commodity index funds was “a contributing factor” to the surge in commodity prices in the middle of last year, Gensler wrote. “The expanding number of hedge funds and other investors who were increasing asset allocations to commodities within their portfolios also put upward pressure on prices,” he states in the letter. Gensler said the CFTC’s “core functions” are to guard against excessive speculation and market manipulation.

- Congressional leaders, trying to quell a dispute over “Buy American” provisions in the stimulus package, are crafting a version that would apply only when they don’t violate trade rules, according to industry officials and a congressional aide.

- House Republicans formed a health team to counter the Democratic majority’s plans to expand government- run U.S. health-care programs. The task force, headed by Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, will offer proposals that avoid creating a new “government-dominated health care bureaucracy,” House Republican leader John Boehner, of Ohio, said today in an e- mailed statement. “Republicans are committed to making health care more affordable, more accessible and offer more options to American families,” Blunt said in the statement. “Unfortunately, the only options we’ve seen so far from this Congress would push us to a one-size-fits-all government-run system.”

- Russia’s central bank is exacerbating the ruble’s 34 percent plunge since August, even as it struggles to defend the exchange rate, by providing loans to banks that speculate on the currency, say Alfa Bank and UniCredit SpA. Bank Rossii lent 7.7 trillion rubles ($214 billion) in overnight and seven-day loans secured with bonds or other collateral in the 16 trading days last month, about double the 4.8 trillion rubles provided in so-called repurchase auctions in December, central bank data show. Banks used “almost all” the money to bet against the ruble, said Natalia Orlova, chief economist at Alfa, Russia’s largest non-government bank. The ruble fell 18 percent against the dollar in January.

- The euro traded near a two-month low against the US dollar on speculation the economic slump in Eastern Europe will cause the 16-nation region’s recession to deepen. The currency may weaken for a second day versus the yen as traders added to bets the European Central Bank will cut interest rates further this year to spur growth, after probably leaving them unchanged at a meeting today. “Given growing concerns about turmoil in emerging markets such as Kazakhstan and Russia, the euro is a sell,” said Masafumi Yamamoto, head of foreign-exchange strategy for Japan at Royal Bank of Scotland in Tokyo and a former Bank of Japan currency trader.

Wall Street Journal:

- Republicans are exercising increasing influence over President Barack Obama's economic-stimulus plan in the Senate, with Maine Sen. Susan Collins emerging as a leader of efforts to trim the initiative and sharpen its focus on job creation. Sen. Collins, a centrist with allies in both parties, was called to the White House Wednesday to meet with Mr. Obama. She envisions holding the cost of the stimulus package to $700 billion or less, well below the $819 billion package of tax cuts and spending the House approved last week. The effort amounts to "rebuilding" the Obama package, according to an individual familiar with the talks. The package would include tax cuts and investments intended to create jobs, such as infrastructure projects, but it would step back from spending projects that don't immediately lift the sagging U.S. economy. After meeting with Mr. Obama, Sen. Collins expressed concern about a number of spending provisions, including $780 million for pandemic-flu preparedness. "I have no doubt that the president is willing to negotiate in good faith, that he wants to have a bipartisan bill," Sen. Collins said.

- The White House's nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, has earned more than $700,000 in speaking and consulting fees since the beginning of 2008, with some of the payments coming from troubled financial firms and from a firm that invests in contractors for federal national security agencies, according to financial disclosures released Wednesday.

CNBC.com:
- Oil is relatively cheap, supplies are more than ample (some analysts fear we're awash in crude), so why am I paying more at the gas pump than I was a month ago? Today the national average for regular unleaded gasoline hit $1.90 a gallon, the highest price we've seen since last November. Retail gasoline prices have risen more than 30 cents since the beginning of the year, up nearly 14 percent, while oil prices have fallen about 13 percent in that same time period. Due to the decline in demand, refiners have already planned to scale back operations during this traditional "turnaround" season a bit earlier and extend maintenance operations a bit longer. Many analysts, including Stephen Schork of the well-regarded industry newsletter The Schork Report, point to the refiners lack of production, particularly on the East Coast, as a major reason for the rally we've seen in gasoline futures over the past couple of days.

IBD:

- In the face of ugly markets, Edwards Lifesciences (EW) has been showing that investors still like innovation. Since December, its shares have risen 22% to 55, from a 12-month low of 45.

Washington Post:

- The Obama administration has told the Pentagon to pare its next budget request to the level it projected a year ago, down nearly $60 billion from a more recent Pentagon wish list, the White House budget office said on Wednesday. In doing so, the administration would be capping the fiscal 2010 Defense Department base budget at about $527 billion, excluding war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Tom Gavin, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget. Douglas Harned, a defense industry analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., said on Wednesday that he continued to expect the 2010 "baseline" investment account to rise at least 2 percent to 3 percent from 2009. "This 'worst case' scenario would still be an attractive budget outlook for defense stocks," he wrote in a note to clients. Congress "will almost certainly want to add items that would raise the budget further," Harned wrote, referring to programs such as Lockheed's F-22 fighter jet and Boeing's C-17 military cargo aircraft. The Pentagon's top suppliers include Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, General Dynamics Corp, Raytheon Co, BAE Systems, L-3 Communications Holdings Inc and United Technologies Corp.

MSNBC.com:

- In its first action to overturn Bush administration policies on energy, the Obama administration on Wednesday said it will cancel oil drilling leases on more than 130,000 acres near two national parks and other protected areas in Utah. “This action will come as a disappointment to communities that were counting on these energy leases to generate high-wage jobs in these difficult economic times," Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said in a statement. "We hope today's decision does not signal the administration is returning to the failed policies of the past, leaving much of America's vast energy resources locked up while the nation's demand for energy continues to grow," added Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute. "I see this announcement as a sign that after eight long years of rapacious greed and backdoor dealings, our government is returning a sense of balance to the way it manages our lands," actor and activist Robert Redford, a trustee with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement issued by groups that opposed the leases. Redford owns a home in Utah and hosts the annual Sundance Film Festival there.

Rasmussen:

- Support for the economic recovery plan working its way through Congress has fallen again this week. For the first time, a plurality of voters nationwide oppose the $800-billion-plus plan. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37% favor the legislation, 43% are opposed, and 20% are not sure. Two weeks ago, 45% supported the plan. Last week, 42% supported it. Opposition has grown from 34% two weeks ago to 39% last week and 43% today.

Reuters:

- Banks, automakers and other companies that have received U.S. bailout money spent $114 million on lobbying and campaign contributions last year, a watchdog group said on Wednesday. The Center for Responsive Politics said that amounted to a healthy return on investment for companies such as Bank of America and General Motors that were among those that received a total of $295 billion in federal support. "Even in the best economic times, you won't find an investment with a greater payoff than what these companies have been getting," executive director Sheila Krumholz said in a statement. Employees from 161 of those companies also gave a total of $37.5 million to federal candidates in 2007 and 2008, the group said. Top recipients included Connecticut Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd and Montana Democratic Senator Max Baucus, both of whom chair committees that oversee the financial services industry.

- U.S. auto parts suppliers are asking for up to $20.5 billion in federal aid to survive the worst industry downturn in decades, the Automotive News reported on Wednesday.

Financial Times:
- A senior adviser to Iran’s president says dialogue with the US will succeed only if the Obama administration accepts Tehran’s right to have a nuclear program. The launch of a homemade Iranian satellite on Tuesday further raised concerns among western powers that Iran was accelerating its development of ballistic missile technology. “If [US] policies change the two nations will get closer to each other, the two governments will get closer to each other and the chances for dialogue and co-operation will succeed,” said Mr Samareh. “The policy of [George W.] Bush was to use this [the nuclear issue] as an excuse to stand up against the Iranian nation. He also pointed to the Bush administration’s support for Israel during conflicts such as the offensive in Gaza against Hamas, which is supported by Iran, and the 2006 Israeli war against Hizbollah, another Iran-backed group. “Is the new US administration going to continue these policies? If it does, then nothing will change,” he said.

- Procter & Gamble(PG) is working with Goldman Sachs to identify potential buyers for its pharmaceuticals brands or find other ways to exit the business, people close to the matter said on Wednesday.

MoneyToday:

- The Bank of Korea cut its forecast for South Korea’s growth this year to .3%, citing the central bank and finance ministry. The central bank, which previously forecast a 2% expansion this year, plans to announce its new estimate in April.

China Daily:

- McDonald's(MCD) sales in China were poor last December, Jeff Schwartz, its China CEO, told China Daily. KFC said its sluggish growth in China had already hurt the share price of parent firm Yum Brands Inc.(YUM) With 2,300 outlets nationwide, the company reported only 1 percent growth in same-store sales in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with 17 percent over the same period in 2007.

Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Citigroup:
- Upgraded (AKAM) to Buy, target $22.

Night Trading
Asian Indices are unch. to +1.50% on average.
S&P 500 futures -.30%.
NASDAQ 100 futures -1.75%.

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Earnings of Note
Company/EPS Estimate
- (RX)/.50

- (NCR)/.55

- (BG)/-.89

- (DO)/2.35

- (CAH)/.89

- (EL)/.77

- (MA)/1.62

- (BKC)/.37

- (CI)/.42

- (DUK)/.25

- (K)/.50

- (NWSA)/.19

- (VRSN)/.28

- (RATE)/.34

- (HIG)/1.28

- (PBI)/.74

Economic Releases

8:30 am EST

- 4Q Non-farm Productivity is estimated to rise 1.5% versus a 1.3% increase in 3Q.

- 4Q Unit Labor Costs are estimated to rise 2.8% versus a 2.8% increase in 3Q.

- Initial Jobless Claims for last week are estimated to fall to 580K versus 588K the prior week.

- Continuing Claims are expected to rise to 44795K versus 4776k prior.

10:00 am EST

- Factory Orders for December are estimated to fall 3.1% versus a 4.6% decline in November.

Upcoming Splits
- None of note

Other Potential Market Movers
- The weekly EIA natural gas inventory report, ICSC chain store sales data, Cowen and Company Aerospace/Defense Conference, CSFB Energy Summit, CSFB Financial Services Conference, the Fed’s Plosser speaking, Fed’s Bullard speaking, Fed’s Stern speaking, (KMT) financial community meeting, (COV) at Dow Jones Global Ethics Summit, (TEG) World Money Show and (STT) analyst meeting could also impact trading today.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by mining and shipping stocks in the region. I expect US equities to open modestly lower and to rally into the afternoon, finishing mixed. The Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the day.

Stocks Finish Near Session Lows, Weighed Down by Food, Education, Telecom, HMO, Retail and Airline Shares

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In Play

Stocks Lower into Final Hour on Political Concerns, Financial Sector Worries

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio is higher into the final hour on gains in my Medical longs, Biotech longs, Internet longs and Computer longs. I added (IWM)/(QQQQ) hedges and added to my (EEM) short this morning, thus leaving the Portfolio 75% net long. The tone of the market is mildly negative as the advance/decline line is slightly lower, most sectors are falling and volume is slightly above average. Investor anxiety is above average. Today’s overall market action is mildly bearish. The VIX is rising 1.88% and is very high at 43.86. The ISE Sentiment Index is low at 93.0 and the total put/call is about average at .88. Finally, the NYSE Arms has been running above average most of the day, hitting 1.18 at its intraday peak, and is currently 1.0. The Euro Financial Sector Credit Default Swap Index is falling 3.10% today to 114.67 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 falling 3.10% to 192.0 basis points. The TED spread is rising 2.07% to 94 basis points. The TED spread is now down 372 basis points in under four months. The 2-year swap spread is rising .73% to 68.75 basis points. The Libor-OIS spread is falling .67% to 97 basis points. The 10-year TIPS spread, a good gauge of inflation expectations, is rising 3 basis points to 1.15%, which is down 155 basis points in under seven months. 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 .29%, which is down 3 basis points today. Nikkei futures indicate a +22 open in Japan and DAX futures indicate a -49 open in Germany tomorrow. Considering the ongoing decline in shares of (BAC), the (XLF) is holding up well today. Market leading “growth” stocks are again substantially outperforming “value” shares. Many stocks are rising today, despite losses in the major averages. Large-cap “growth” stocks are just 2.79% lower ytd, while small-cap “value” shares have dropped another 13.72% so far this year. As well, tech stocks continue to substantially outperform with the MS Tech Index up 2.78% ytd. One of my longs, (ILMN), is 21% higher on very heavy volume after another stellar earnings report. I expect the shares to test their record high of $47.87 before year-end. I expect US stocks to trade modestly higher into the close from current levels on short-covering, bargain-hunting, diminishing credit market angst and lower energy prices.

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

- A “bubble” in crude oil, natural gas and other commodity prices cost the US more than $110 billion last year and helped drive the nation into economic crisis, according to a report by hedge fund president Michael Masters. “The effect was to take an already weak and frail economy and push it down the stairs,” Masters, head of Masters Capital Management, and Adam White, director of research for White Knight Research & Trading, say in a report at a hearing this morning of the House Agriculture Committee, which is reviewing derivatives legislation proposed by its chairman, Democratic Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota. If there were rules in place to limit speculative positions in the commodity markets, “there never would have been a commodities bubble in 2008,” Masters and White conclude.

- SPDR Gold Trust, the largest exchange-traded fund backed by bullion, increased its outstanding shares by 39% since Lehman Brothers collapsed, more than double the gain in gold, as investors sought a quick way to safety. “History shows at times of pronounced financial and economic stress, investors disregard traditional pointers such as gold’s price relationship with currencies and physical bullion flows and focus on a safe place to park assets,” analysts including Melbourne-based Malcolm Southwood wrote. “This assertion is well supported by the latest surge in interest in gold ETFs.” Though gold remains one of the few notable beneficiaries of heightened anxiety in financial markets, its attraction may not last as the precious metal “has rarely sustained a rally during periods of deflation,” the report said. The Intl. Energy Agency’s forecast that oil could decline to just above $30 per barrel “could be viewed as an early warning for perpetual gold bulls,” the report said.

- President Barack Obama, who has wavered on his pledge to block lobbyists from working in his administration, is finding his Cabinet nominees’ violations of tax laws more difficult to overlook. The withdrawals yesterday of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to be Health and Human Services Secretary and Nancy Killefer to be his chief oversight officer, were Obama’s biggest setbacks as president. In both cases, the nominations were scuttled after the candidates admitted tax mistakes.

- Mexico’s central bank is buying pesos in the foreign-exchange market after the currency plunged to a record low today, the bank’s press office said. A joint central bank and finance ministry committee decided Banco de Mexico would “inject liquidity,” according to an e-mail sent by the central bank’s press office. The intervention is an “extraordinary” measure beyond the bank’s normal offer to buy $400 million worth of pesos a day, the press office said.

- Harry Markopolos, a former money manager who sought to convince regulators for nine years that Bernard Madoff was a fraud, said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission suffers from “investigative ineptitude.” Markopolos told Congress today that he contacted the SEC in 2000 after examining Madoff’s investment strategy and determining in four hours that returns exceeding 10 percent weren’t possible. Markopolos, in almost a decade of communication, said only one SEC staff member understood Madoff’s scheme and “the threat it posed to the public.”

- Bank of American’s(BAC) Lewis said January performance was ‘encouraging.”

Wall Street Journal:

- Google’s(GOOG) Latitude, Useful Addition to Maps Applications. (video)

- Goldman Sachs(GS) called off its big Miami hedge-fund conference scheduled for the first week of March, telling clients that going ahead with the normally posh event there could cause image problems for the firm at a time of intense scrutiny over banks' spending habits. "In light of the current environment, Goldman decided to reschedule the hedge-fund managers' conference. We plan to hold the conference in the next few months in New York," Goldman spokesman Ed Canaday said.

MarketWatch:
- The US dollar got a lift against the euro Wednesday, after credit-ratings agency Fitch Ratings downgraded Russia's long-term foreign and local currency ratings.

The dollar index (DXY) , which measures the U.S. unit against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was at 85.588, up from 84.795 in North American activity late Tuesday. The euro extended losses versus the greenback, recently buying $1.2865, down from $1.3044 on Tuesday. The downgrade was "lighting a fire under the U.S. dollar," said Stephen Gallo, head of market analysis at Schneider Foreign Exchange.

Politico:

- Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed. In an interview Tuesday with Politico, Cheney unyieldingly defended the Bush administration’s support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects. And he asserted that President Obama will either backtrack on his stated intentions to end those policies or put the country at risk in ways more severe than most Americans — and, he charged, many members of Obama’s own team — understand.

- General Wes Clark has signed on as a front man for the ethanol industry , a source familiar with his plans said, putting him in the trenches of a high-stakes, if somewhat obscure, Washington lobbying battle. He'll announce at a Marriott Wardman Park press conference tomorrow that he'll be the co-chair of Growth Energy, an ethanol industry group that's been engaged in a fascinating fight with the Grocery Manufacturers Association over, more or less, the price of corn. The grocery stores hired the Glover Park Group to discredit ethanol as an environmental plus; the ethanol producers countered by demanding that the food industry lower its prices as commodity prices dropped last year. Newt Gingrich is with Clark on the pro-ethanol side.

The Detroit News:

- Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, in her seventh State of the State address, called Tuesday for a near-moratorium on new coal-fired power plants and a major reduction in reliance on coal for electricity generation over the next decade. Approval of eight coal plants now in the pipeline will be delayed at least several months while the state reviews alternatives, and some of them won't be built, the governor and her aides indicated.

CNNMoney.com:

- Is it time to buy U.S. stocks? According to both this 85-year chart and famed investor Warren Buffett, it just might be. The point of the chart is that there should be a rational relationship between the total market value of U.S. stocks and the output of the U.S. economy - its GNP. Fortune first ran a version of this chart in late 2001. Stocks had by that time retreated sharply from the manic levels of the Internet bubble. But they were still very high, with stock values at 133% of GNP. That level certainly did not suggest to Buffett that it was time to buy stocks. But he visualized a moment when purchases might make sense, saying, "If the percentage relationship falls to the 70% to 80% area, buying stocks is likely to work very well for you."

Reuters:
- As China's economic storm clouds darken and more firms face bankruptcy, factory workers such as Xiang Yongheng have seen their confidence badly shaken in authorities who are supposed to protect their labor rights. Beaten by thugs last week after demanding three months of unpaid wages from his bosses at the "Yi Fan" food processing factory in Shenzhen's Longgang district, Xiang appealed to the local labor bureau and police for help, but to no avail. "They just said we can't help you. The authorities are trying to suppress my case, I even took evidence to them but they ignored it and just told me to go away," said the 25-year-old.

- Google Inc(GOOG) wants to cash in its three-year-old, 5 percent stake in Internet media company AOL. Time Warner Inc said on Wednesday it received a request from Google last week seeking to exercise its "demand registration statement" on the AOL stake.

Financial Times:
- Commodities prices could remain at their current depressed levels for up to seven years as the global recession hits demand, according to Michael Farmer, founder of hedge fund Red Kite, one of the most closely watched figures in the base metals market. Mr Farmer, who used to run MG, then the world's biggest copper trader, runs Red Kite, which consists of five hedge funds with $1bn under management that are among the biggest investors in metals. "We have gone from boom to bust and I think we [the markets] are going to be bust for a little while." Last year Red Kite Metals, the main fund, was up almost 20 per cent, investors said, while two smaller funds were up 64 and just over 30 per cent. Two funds launched in the summer, one investing in China and the other providing mezzanine finance to miners, rose 6-7 per cent, while another fund is planned. Red Kite is closely followed by metals investors as it often takes big bets. Mr Farmer said investors should expect both the commodities markets and Red Kite's funds to be far less volatile in the future, as "warehouses full of metal" damp price moves. Base metals inventories at London Metals Exchange warehouses have soared in the last three months as demand, particularly in Europe and the US but lately also in Asia, has plunged far faster than producers have cut supply. Aluminium stocks are at a record high of 2.84m tons while copper stocks have zoomed to 495,000 tonnes, the highest level since late 2003. Nickel stocks are the highest since at least 1998.

Interfax:

- Kazakhstan raised the output of crude oil and gas condensate by 7.5% in January to 6.2 million metric tons, citing a government official.

Bear Radar

Style Underperformer:
Large-cap Value (+.13%)

Sector Underperformers:
Education (-3.19%), Foods (-2.68%) and Retail (-2.06%)

Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume:
DVN, ADM, KFT, DIS, COST, DLTR, BECN, LFUS, WYNN, SQNM, JKHY, UTI and AJG

Stocks With Unusual Put Option Activity:
1) TXT 2) ADS 3) ENR 4) RTN 5) CCI