Friday, March 06, 2009

Bull Radar

Style Outperformer:
Large-cap Value (+.03%)

Sector Outperformers:
HMOs (+2.20%), Energy (+1.25%) and Utilities (+1.18%)

Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
POR, GFI, BW, SU, RTP, AU, UNS, RDS/A, JCOM, ARST, TNDM, FWLT, OSIP and RGR

Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
1) IBN 2) NSM 3) FWLT 4) NKE 5) WDC

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Thursday, March 05, 2009

Friday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:

- BHP Billiton Ltd.(BHP) and Rio Tinto Group(RTP), the world’s largest and third-largest mining companies, had their earnings estimates cut by Merrill Lynch & Co. by as much as 45 percent because of declining metal prices.

- The cost of protecting Australian corporate bonds from default climbed to a record on rising unemployment data from the US and concern banks and insurance companies will face steeper losses. The Markit iTraxx AustraliaSydney, according to Citigroup Inc. The benchmark has jumped more than 75 basis points this year. The Markit iTraxx Japan index jumped 25 basis points to 530 at 10:12 am in Tokyo, Barclays Capital prices show. index of credit-default swaps on the debt of 25 companies, including Qantas Airways Ltd. and BHP Billiton Ltd., rose 15 basis points to 435 at 10:54 am in

- Lockheed Martin Corp.’s presidential helicopter program is now projected to cost $13 billion, more than twice its original estimate, according to the Pentagon. This latest estimate, prepared for congressional defense committees, is more bad news for a program President Barack Obama last month called “an example of the procurement process gone amok.” The Pentagon, in a 15-page update on the program, blames the increased cost on delays and “unanticipated” work.

- Amusement-park operator Six Flags Inc. and automaker Ford Motor Co. may be pushed toward bankruptcy by bondholders trying to profit from credit-default swaps that protect against losses on their high-yield debt. By employing a so-called negative-basis trade, investors could buy Six Flags bonds at 20.5 cents on the dollar and credit- default swaps at 71 cents. If the New York-based chain defaults, the creditors would receive the face value of the debt, minus costs. In a Feb. 27 note, Citigroup Inc.’s high-yield strategists put that profit at 6 percentage points, or $600,000 on a $10 million purchase. Investors who bet on the collapse of a company are pitting themselves against traditional debt holders at a time when Moody’s Investors Service projects defaults will more than triple this year to the worst level since the Great Depression. The clash may stall restructuring efforts to prevent bankruptcies, as basis traders may be less inclined to participate in distressed debt exchanges, said Matthew Eagan, an investment manager at Boston-based Loomis Sayles & Co., with $7 billion in high-yield assets. “Before, you really had to worry mostly about where you were in the” company’s capital structure, he said. “Now, you have to consider the possibility that you might have this large holder of CDS incentivized to see it go into bankruptcy. It’s something that’s going to come up more and more.”

- Mortgage ‘Cram-Down’ Bankruptcy Bill Approved by US House. The so-called cram-down bill, approved 234-191, lets federal bankruptcy judges lengthen terms, cut interest rates and reduce the balance on mortgages. It also would permanently increase the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s coverage of bank deposits to $250,000. The measure now goes to the U.S. Senate. The bankruptcy provision is opposed by the banking industry and most Republicans, who said it would further destabilize home prices.

- The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 20% since Inauguration Day, the fastest drop under a new president ever, as investors speculated Barack Obama’s stimulus measures won’t revive the economy anytime soon. “We don’t know what the rules are in so many different areas the government is touching,” said Dan Veru, who helps oversee $2.8 billion at Palisade Capital Management in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The S&P 500 is down 41% since Sept. 17th of last year, which was the day that President Obama pulled ahead of Republican Senator John McCain for good in the presidential tracking polls and two days after the US government let Lehman Brothers fail.

- Cisco Systems Inc.(CSCO), seeking to build new businesses that support network-equipment sales, is looking for acquisitions to expand its media and Web unit. Providers of online advertising and analytics technology are possible targets, Daniel Scheinman, general manager of Cisco Media Solutions, said today in an interview in New York.

- The yen will fall to 102 against the U.S. dollar as risk sentiment improves and a weakening domestic economy prompts investors to buy assets outside Japan, Barclays Capital said. The currency has lost 8.8 percent since strengthening to 87.12 per dollar on Jan. 21, the highest since 1995, as investors sold higher-yielding assets to repay low-cost borrowings in Japan. The yen will weaken 4 percent against the greenback over the next three months, Barclays Capital said, revising last month’s forecast for it to strengthen to 86.

- The idea that China can grow strongly as the world unravels is a fantasy. Ditto for the view that China is going to save the global economy. China is already slowing, of course. The third-biggest economy grew 6.8 percent in the last quarter of 2008. Such growth sounds like heaven just about everywhere else. Yet for an economy at China’s level of development, one that zoomed along at a 13 percent pace in 2007, it’s hell. Premier Wen Jiabao was wrong to err on the side of caution yesterday when he delivered the Chinese equivalent of the U.S. State of the Union address. He said the country’s 8 percent growth target is within reach, indicating an additional stimulus package isn’t needed. It’s a bad call, and Wen is likely to regret it as 2009 unfolds. Here are five reasons a Chinese rebound in 2009 may not pan out:

- Earnings estimates for Asian stocks outside Japan have the most room to fall globally, even after analysts lowered their estimates for a third of all companies covered last month, JPMorgan Chase said. Profit forecasts in the region will need to decline by 24% before reaching the so-called bottom trend line in previous cycles, JPMorgan’s quantitative analysts led by Robert Smith wrote. Europe and global emerging markets are the only other regions where downgrades haven’t reached the lower limit, the report said.


Wall Street Journal:

- Obama’s Radicalism Is Killing the Dow. It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis. The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents -- John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance -- President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian defense drawdown. Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

- Vice President Joe Biden embraced union leaders and their legislative agenda Thursday at the AFL-CIO's winter meeting, underscoring a relationship with organized labor that is the closest of any administration's in several decades. In a free-flowing address that lasted roughly an hour, Mr. Biden strongly endorsed a bill that would ease union organizing that labor and the business community are battling over, linking the legislation to the need to reframe a "social contract" between workers and employers. Mr. Biden argued that since the 1970s employers had taken a harsher stance toward unions. As a result, he said, unions had gotten weaker and workers' pay had failed to rise in tandem with productivity gains, which in turn has contributed to the economic crisis the country now faces. "One of the most difficult things will be to reinstitute that basic bargain," Mr. Biden said. "I think the way to do that is the Employee Free Choice Act."

- Goldman Sachs(GS) standout media banker Joseph Ravitch is retiring from the firm, according to people familiar with the matter. The departure is a blow to Goldman’s media group, which has grown into a ubiquitous player in the world of media, telecommunications and sports deals.

- Top General Motors Corp.(GM) executives are more open to a speedy bankruptcy reorganization financed by the government, pushing aside earlier concern that such a move would scare away so many customers the company wouldn't survive, said a person familiar with the matter. While the company still wants to avoid bankruptcy, the new view represents a reversal from GM's position late last year, when it sought a federal bailout. The change in thinking, combined with the disclosure Thursday that GM's auditor has raised "substantial doubt" about the car maker's ability to keep going, appears to move GM closer to the possibility it will file for reorganization.

- When hedge funds were riding high, investors lined up to get in and swallowed steep fees. Now a small public pension fund in Utah is seizing on last year's disappointing returns to try to change all that. Larry Powell, deputy chief investment officer for the $16 billion Utah Retirement System, is trying to galvanize other institutional investors to exert more pressure on hedge funds to get a better deal. Among the changes he has outlined: Performance fees should be spread over two or three years. Management and performance fees should come down as investors increase their allocation to the fund.

CNBC.com:
- Despite the recession and almost daily layoff announcements from major companies, many employers across the country are actually hiring.

CNNMoney.com:
- Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, has withdrawn his name from consideration as surgeon general of the United States, an administration official said Thursday. "Sanjay Gupta was under serious consideration for the job of surgeon general," the official said in an e-mail. "He has removed himself from consideration to focus more on his medical career and his family. We know he will continue to serve and educate the public through his work with media and in the medical arena."

Reuters:

- A senior Democratic lawmaker said on Thursday he would push to pass legislation to repeal a three-year-old U.S. ban on Internet gambling that has hurt trade ties with European Union. "I'm going to be pushing it," House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank told reporters at a press conference to lay out his agenda for reforming U.S. financial regulation.

- U.S. Democrats on Thursday moved to reverse a U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited the ability of patients to sue medical devices manufacturers over harm from their products. The device industry group Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) attacked the measure, saying the FDA should determine if a product was too risky rather than state courts. "This bill does not in any way improve patient safety," AdvaMed President Stephen Ubl said in a statement. "It will, however, restrict patient access to essential medical technologies, produce a chilling effect on medical innovation, create more lawsuits and ultimately result in higher health-care costs for all Americans," Ubl said.

- South Korea told the North on Friday to immediately withdraw a threat it made against the South's commercial airliners, which has forced them to stop flying near the airspace of the communist neighbor. North Korea, which is preparing to test its longest-range missile, said on Thursday it could not guarantee the safety of the South's commercial flights off the east coast of the peninsula where the missile base is located.


TimesOnline:

- Are life insurance companies the new banks? They seem to think so. Aviva, the largest British insurer, was blaming bear raids by short-sellers yesterday for the astonishing 33 per cent plunge in its share price. Investors seem inclined to agree, for other reasons, predicting that some of the big household name insurers, including Aviva, Legal & General and Prudential, will have to raise bucketloads of money from their shareholders. They brush aside the assurances from executives that big investment losses are not on the cards and rights issues not in the plans. The market continues to predict the worst is yet to come. Some of the big guns of the hedge fund world, including Odey Asset Management and Lansdowne Partners, are known to have targeted insurance companies as likely to be at the centre of the next credit markets blow-up. Having had good sport with the banks, they smell new blood.


21st Century Business Herald:

- China’s exports may have fallen 20% in February from a year earlier, citing a trade official. Imports may have also fallen 20% in January, it said. China’s trade surplus for February may be $7 billion.


Late Buy/Sell Recommendations

- None of note


Night Trading
Asian Indices are -1.50% to -.25% on average.
S&P 500 futures -.25%.
NASDAQ 100 futures -.23%.


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Earnings of Note
Company/EPS Estimate
- (ANN)/-.55

- (HRB)/.10


Economic Releases

8:30 am EST

- The Change in Non-farm Payrolls for February is estimated at -650K versus -598K in January.

- The Unemployment Rate for February is estimated at 7.9% versus 7.6% in January.

- Average Hourly Earnings for February are estimated to rise .2% versus a .3% gain in January.


3:00 pm EST:

- Consumer Credit for January is estimated at -$5.0B versus -$6.6B in December.


Upcoming Splits
- None of note


Other Potential Market Movers
- The Fed’s Dudley speaking, Fed’s Plosser speaking, (FWLT) investors meeting and the (PNY) shareholders meeting could also impact trading today.


BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are lower, weighed down by commodity and automaker stocks in the region. I expect US equities to open modestly higher and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing mixed. The Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the day.

Stocks Finish at Session Lows, Weighed Down by Financial, Airline, REIT, HMO and Commodity Shares

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In Play

Stocks Sharply Lower into Final Hour on Rising Financial Sector Worries, Increasing Economic Pessimism, Surging Credit Market Angst, More Shorting

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio is lower into the final hour on losses in my Internet longs, Retail longs and Biotech longs. I added (IWM)/(QQQQ) hedges, added to my (EEM) short and exited by (GME) long this morning, thus leaving the Portfolio 50% net long. The tone of the market is very negative as the advance/decline line is substantially lower, almost every sector is declining and volume is about average. Investor anxiety is above average. Today’s overall market action is very bearish. The VIX is rising 6.0% and is elevated at 50.39. The ISE Sentiment Index is below average at 107.0 and the total put/call is above average at 1.00. Finally, the NYSE Arms has been running low most of the day, hitting .49 at its intraday trough, and is currently .63. The Euro Financial Sector Credit Default Swap Index is soaring 17.25% today to 187.33 basis points. This index is making a new record high at 187.33. The North American Investment Grade Credit Default Swap Index is rising 3.44% to 251.35 basis points. This index is still below its Dec. 5th record high of 285.99. The TED spread is rising 5.14% to 108 basis points. The TED spread is now down 355 basis points since its all-time high of 463 basis points on October 10th. The 2-year swap spread is rising 4.18% to 74.75 basis points. The Libor-OIS spread is rising .79% to 104.0 basis points. The 10-year TIPS spread, a good gauge of inflation expectations, is dropping 7 basis points to .88%, which is down 176 basis points since July 7th. 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 .20%, which is down 5 basis points today. Many gauges of investor angst still remain stubbornly low given the carnage that is taking place. The 10-year TIPS spread is rolling over again. I suspect another meaningful surge higher in long-term US govt. treasuries is underway given how bearish the crowd is on these securities. Barney Frank reiterated again today that Congress shouldn’t do away with the market-to-market rule. Asia will likely come under significant pressure tonight. On the positive side, the AAII % Bulls fell to 18.92% and the % Bears jumped to 70.27% this week. The % Bears is now at a new record high, eclipsing the 67.1% seen the week of Oct. 18th 1990. Some market leading stocks are holding up relatively well today. Nikkei futures indicate a -260 open in Japan and DAX futures indicate a -8 open in Germany tomorrow. I expect US stocks to trade mixed-to-lower into the close from current levels on more economic pessimism, more shorting, rising financial sector pessimism and tax hike worries.

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

- General Electric Co.(GE) Chief Financial Officer Keith Sherin said investors’ speculation about risk at GE Capital is “overdone” and that the finance arm will be profitable in the first quarter.

- Intercontinental Exchange Inc.’s(ICE) bid to become the top U.S. guarantor of credit-default swap trades moved a step closer after the Federal Reserve approved its proposal, leaving the Securities and Exchange Commission as the futures market’s final regulatory hurdle.

- The cost of protecting against default on bonds sold by European banks and insurers rose to a record, according to traders of credit-default swaps. The Markit iTraxx Senior Financial index roses 14 basis points to 175, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. prices at 9:26 a.m. in London. The index for subordinated financial debt soared 47 basis points to 345.

- Steven Leuthold, whose Grizzly Short Fund makes money for investors by betting companies will fail, says he wouldn’t invest in his own fund now because the U.S. stock market is close to its bottom. Leuthold, who helps manage $3.2 billion as founder of Minneapolis-based Leuthold Weeden Capital Management, told investors to keep money out of the Grizzly fund yesterday after it rose 74 percent in 2008. He joined Bill Fleckenstein, who shut a 13-year-old bearish fund in December, and Marc Faber, who covered bets against U.S. stocks.

- Subic Bay in the Philippines is the busiest it’s been since the U.S. Navy moved out 16 years ago. The traffic surge is coming from ships all carrying the same cargo --nothing. Last week, 19 vessels were anchored in the mountain-lined bay awaiting charters near an empty container terminal. The authorities at the port, 110 kilometers west of Manila, were expecting another eight this week.

- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicted a deeper global recession than it previously anticipated and said the slump could yet worsen. Goldman Sachs now expects worldwide gross domestic product to shrink 0.6 percent in 2009 compared to a previous forecast for a 0.2 percent contraction, London-based economist Binit Patel said today in a report to clients.

- The European Central Bank cut interest rates to a record low in an attempt to stem the worst recession since World War II. Officials meeting in Frankfurt reduced the benchmark lending rate by half a percentage point to 1.5 percent, as forecast by all 55 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. That’s the lowest since the ECB took control of monetary policy in 1999. The bank may wait until May to cut rates further, another survey of economists shows.

- European banks may need to raise as much as 40 billion euros ($50 billion) of additional capital by 2010 because of loan losses in central and Eastern Europe, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts said. Nordic banks including Swedbank AB, SEB AB and Danske Bank A/S may need 8 billion euros for bad loans in the Baltics, while Austrian banks such as Raiffeisen International Bank-Holding AG and Erste Group Bank AG may need 5 billion euros because of non- performing loans in central and eastern Europe, JPMorgan analysts including Paul Formanko said in the note today.

- European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet comments on monetary policy, the economic outlook, inflation and risks. He spoke during a press conference in Frankfurt today after the ECB lowered its key rate by 50 basis points to 1.5 percent.

- Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said House Democrats want to pass a climate-change bill by June and a health-care overhaul by August, and may use procedures aimed at letting the Senate pass the legislation without Republican votes. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said the climate-change legislation may include a cap-and-trade system designed to help rein in carbon dioxide emissions. He said lawmakers may use special “reconciliation” procedures that would make the measures filibuster-proof in the Senate to overcome the need there for 60 votes. Democrats control the Senate with 58 votes.

- U.S. Bancorp and Northern Trust Corp. will return funds from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to Representative Barney Frank.

- Treasuries rose, led by 30-year bonds, on speculation the Federal Reserve may buy longer-maturity government securities after the Bank of England said it would buy sovereign and corporate debt. Yields on the bonds fell the most in two weeks, paring losses since the start of the year that have made them the worst- performing government security. The debt has fallen 2.8 percent since Feb. 18, when the minutes of the Fed’s Jan. 27-28 policy meeting suggested officials will wait before buying Treasuries to keep borrowing costs lower.


Wall Street Journal:

- President Barack Obama is meeting strong Democratic Party resistance to his proposal to reduce tax deductions enjoyed by upper-income Americans and could be forced to drop or modify the idea. Mr. Obama in his budget blueprint last week proposed a cap on itemized deductions for mortgage interest and charitable donations to help pay for his health-care overhaul. The plan would cost wealthier taxpayers about $318 billion in new taxes over 10 years, according to government estimates. But after objections from Democratic lawmakers, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appeared to suggest at one point Wednesday that the administration was willing to consider dropping or modifying the proposal. The resistance from Mr. Obama's own party -- focusing on a single element of the president's tax plans -- could foreshadow broader troubles for the rest of his proposed tax increases. Republicans have already taken aim at rate increases planned for higher-income earners, as well as the administration's plans to raise hundreds of billions of dollars through climate-change legislation.

- The Securities and Exchange Commission said it will raise the transaction fees it charges exchanges to $25.70 per $1 million in securities sales from the current level of $5.60.


CNBC.com:
- Paul Ryan, the senior Republican on the US House Budget Committee, told CNBC that President Barack Obama’s budget plan for 2010 will require ‘huge’ tax increases. The spending package was written without regard to the fact “that the US is in recession,” Ryan, from Wisconsin, said. (video)

- Venezuela's top food company Empresas Polar called Thursday for talks with the government after President Hugo Chavez threatened to take it over and nationalized a unit owned by a U.S. food giant Cargill. With the threats and the move against Cargill, Chavez has renewed a two-year nationalization drive just weeks after he won a referendum allowing him to run for re-election.

- Exxon Mobil(XOM) said Thursday it was well-positioned to ride out weak oil prices and that it would hike its capital spending by nearly 12 percent this year. Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded company, said it would spend about $29 billion in 2009, the upper end of its five-year annual spending target of $25 billion to $30 billion per year, as part of its effort to meet long-term growth in world demand.

- The world would get a $1 trillion economic stimulus if oil prices stay at around $40 a barrel through 2009, the head of the International Energy Agency told Reuters on Thursday.


Barron’s:

- MANY INVESTORS ARE BEGINNING to think that certain stocks have fallen so far, they have no place to go but up. Taking that viewpoint, managed health-care stocks are beginning to look ripe for the picking. Down 29% since Feb. 23, the AMEX Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor Index plunged last week, the bulk coming Thursday when President Obama outlined his budget and announced plans to cut payments to private health plans sold to Medicare beneficiaries, called Medicare Advantage. As is often the case, the sector-wide selloff has ensnared some promising stocks now selling at more attractive prices.


Washington Times:

- President Obama's newly named Economic Recovery Advisory Board, the real-world Americans being asked to help solve the nation's financial crisis, includes a union executive who took the Fifth in a federal probe, a billionaire whose failed bank pioneered the subprime mortgage market, and deep-pocket donors who gave or gathered nearly $1.2 million for the president's campaign. In all, 11 of the 16 board members donated or raised money for Democrats in the last election, according to a Washington Times review of campaign finance records. They include the president and chief operating officer of the American arm of UBS Investment Bank, the Swiss-based bank now at the center of a widening tax evasion probe by the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service. In announcing the board's creation, Mr. Obama described its members as "distinguished citizens outside the government" who were qualified on the basis of achievement, experience, independence and integrity to "bring a diverse set of perspectives and voices from different parts of the country and different sectors of the economy to bear in the formulation and evaluation of economic policy."


Wealth Bulletin:

- More than one in every four hedge funds stopped reporting performance to a prominent central database last year in a sign of how investment losses and portfolio closures hit the $1.4 trillion industry during its worst year on record.


USA Today:

- A $410 billion bill that would keep the government running through September directs $227 million to pet projects for former lawmakers, including an ex-congressman facing corruption charges, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

Reuters:
- General Motors Corp on Thursday said its auditors had raised "substantial doubt" about its ability to survive outside bankruptcy if it fails to stem its losses and stop burning cash. The "going concern" warning from the struggling U.S. automaker had been expected, but underscored the stakes for GM as it seeks up to $30 billion in U.S. government aid to restructure outside a court-supervised bankruptcy process.

Estado:

- Brazilian Textile Exports Declined 36% in February.


Interfax:

- Russian airlines sold 20% fewer tickets in February compared with the same month last year, citing the Federal Transportation Agency.


RIA Novosti:

-Russian car imports fell 66% in January to 33,600, citing Federal Customs Service Data.