Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is examining whether hedge funds let favored clients or employees withdraw their money while freezing redemptions or liquidating funds, Commissioner Elisse Walter said. A surge in redemption suspensions and liquidations in the past year has created “particular concern as to whether hedge- fund advisers may be favoring their own interests above others,” Walter said today in prepared testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. “Principals, employees or favored investors of the hedge-fund adviser may have received ‘preferential redemptions’ from the fund at issue.”

- The US dollar rose from almost a two- month low versus the euro as some traders bet the greenback’s record plunge on the Federal Reserve’s plan to buy Treasuries was too big to sustain. “The dollar’s decline this week has more or less priced in the policy response,” said David Woo, global head of foreign- exchange strategy at Barclays Capital in London, in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “Over the next three months, I don’t see much downside for the dollar to the extent other central banks will be under pressure to follow the Fed’s lead and essentially go down the route of quantitative easing.”

- The cost of protecting European corporate bonds from default fell as benchmark credit-default swaps indexes rolled into a new series. Contracts on the Markit iTraxx Crossover Index Series 11 of 45 companies with mostly high-risk, high-yield credit ratings cost 925 basis points, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. prices. That compares with 1,105 basis points on the previous series yesterday, which referenced 50 companies. The Markit iTraxx Europe investment-grade index fell 13.5 basis points to 170.5. The Financial Index of credit-default swaps on senior bonds rose 3 basis points to 176 and the subordinated index fell 3 to 357, JPMorgan prices show.

- Aluminum may trade as low as about $1,000 a metric ton, the lowest since at least 1986, in what will be the worst year for European demand in more than a decade, according to Barclays Capital. The 15 percent rebound from a low this year of $1,251 a ton reached on Feb. 24 is unjustified, analysts including Gayle Berry wrote in a research note published yesterday. Government efforts to sustain output and save jobs from China to Venezuela are also preventing a necessary reduction in supply, it said. “Governments are propping up smelter output,” the analysts wrote. “This is very bad news for the health of the aluminum industry. Unless production is cut more aggressively in other locations, it is in danger of building a stockpile so large it might take years to work off.” The recent broad rebound in base metals, a result of some investors buying back in “a heavily shorted market” and on prospects of purchases by China, was also overdone, they wrote. The price gains are discouraging producers from cutting output. “Support in the form of production cuts has all but disappeared with higher prices enabling some producers at the margin to hold on for a little longer,” the note said. “For markets in surplus, like aluminum and nickel, this is particularly worrying.”

- Steel demand has fallen 30% in the first quarter and will suffer a “further significant decline” in the following three months, according to Eurofer, the Eruopean steel industry lobby group. Consumption has “collapsed” since the fourth quarter of last year, with order levels down almost 60%, the group said.

- The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of shipping costs for commodities, declined for a second consecutive week on falling demand for iron-ore transporters. The index fell 16% to 1,782 points this week. Rents for capsize vessels that typically haul iron ore to make steel slid 15% to $19,997 a day. Smaller panamaxes that compete for the same cargoes and also carry grains lost 32% to $11,804 a day. “Dry-bulk rates may see additional near-term downside, as China’s iron-ore imports will likely slow in coming months on elevated inventories,” Justin Yagerman, an analyst at Wachovia Corp. in NY, wrote today.

- The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development may cut its forecast for China’s economic growth this year to as little as 6 percent because of the deepening global slump, Secretary-General Angel Gurria said.

In November, the estimate was 8 percent.

- The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development may cut its forecast for China’s economic growth this year to as little as 6 percent because of the deepening global slump, Secretary-General Angel Gurria said. In November, the estimate was 8 percent.

- The rally that gave the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index a 16 percent gain in less than two weeks is poised to continue, according to some options traders. “The flattening of index skew has been dramatic and the market may be predicting a stronger likelihood of a rally in stocks,” said Pamela Finelli, head of European equity options research at Deutsche Bank in London. “Hedging demand has declined and more people are now using calls to position themselves cautiously for the upside.” A smaller skew is viewed as bullish because the measure tracks how much investors are willing to pay to protect their assets from price declines.

- European industrial production dropped by the most on record in January as the deepest global recession in more than six decades forced companies to cut output and curb investments. Production in the euro region fell 17.3 percent from the year-earlier month, the biggest decline since the data series began in 1986, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. The January plunge exceeded the 15.5 percent drop forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey. From the previous month, output fell 3.5 percent.

- Treasury 10-year notes headed for the biggest weekly rally since December after the Federal Reserve’s plan to buy as much as $300 billion in government debt led to the largest one-day surge in more than four decades. U.S. securities of all maturities advanced this week on speculation the Fed’s program will put a ceiling on yields after the worst start to a year for Treasuries since 1980. Notes gained the most as the Fed said March 18 its purchases will concentrate on two- to 10-year maturities. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in a speech policy makers are “generally encouraged” by the market’s reaction to the program.

- Venezuela’s bolivar sank to a 16- month low on speculation President Hugo Chavez will devalue the official exchange rate for the first time in four years to narrow a budget gap that swelled as oil prices declined. The bolivar fell 1.9 percent to 6.43 per dollar in unregulated trading at 12:25 p.m. New York time, said Nelson Corrie, head trader at Interacciones Casa de Bolsa in Caracas. Chavez said yesterday that he’ll announce economic measures this weekend in response to the tumble in oil, the source of more than 90 percent of the South American country’s exports.

- President Barack Obama’s budget will generate a $1.9 trillion deficit this year, $100 billion more than the administration projected, according to a person familiar with a Congressional Budget Office report to be released today. The person said next year’s shortfall will also be larger than projected, totaling $1.4 trillion. The administration said in its budget request to Congress last month that next year’s deficit would total $1.17 trillion.

- President Barack Obama urged Iran to opt for peace over “terror or arms,” forging diplomatic ties with the world, and an adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded that the U.S. should lift sanctions. Javanfekr said Obama must lift the sanctions imposed on Iran for pursuing its nuclear program, and admit past mistakes, such as support for Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime during the 1980-88 war with Iran, the 1988 downing of an Iranian airliner by the U.S. Navy in the Strait of Hormuz and support for a 1953 coup d’etat in Tehran to ensure oil supplies to the West. “There is a need for more than talks,” Javanfekr said. “Obama needs to show that he believes what he is saying.” In the video, Obama praised Iran’s “great and celebrated culture.” “We know that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world,” Obama said. Obama repeatedly has said he is prepared to engage in talks with Iranian officials to try to solve differences, in particular over Iran’s nuclear activities. Iran is “beyond the issue of suspension” of uranium enrichment activities, Ahmadinejad said in a Feb. 17 interview with Iranian state television.

Wall Street Journal:

- Credit-rating companies, widely assailed for their role in fueling the financial crisis with overly rosy debt ratings, stand to make a billion-dollar windfall in the government's latest attempt to heal the credit markets. The new rescue effort, run by the Federal Reserve, kicked off Thursday with bond deals totaling more than $7 billion. Each bond issue will need to be blessed by at least two of the three big rating firms: Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services and Fitch Ratings.

- Even as new loans soar in China and economic stimulus spur a flurry of cash-hungry infrastructure projects, foreign banks in China are struggling to boost lending.

- Attorney General Eric Holder said some detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may end up being released in the U.S. as the Obama administration works with foreign allies to resettle some of the prisoners.

- U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that regulators may need to modify capital and accounting rules to make sure they don't magnify ups and downs in the financial markets.

CNBC.com:
- Wall Street Legends on Hedge Funds. (video)

- The economy is “starting to improve,” Omega Advisers Inc. founder Leon Cooperman told CNBC. In a roundtable discussion, Cooperman said signs of a recovery in included seeing stability in economic statistics, an improvement in financial stocks and a return of credit.

- Poll: Did Congress Overreact to AIG Bonuses?

NY Times:

- Democratic Senator Chris Dodd draws Connecticut voters’ ire for his AIG bonus role. Across Connecticut, anger is erupting against Mr. Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, whose stature in Washington once reflected the state’s beneficial ties with the financial industry. Now, he finds himself a symbol of the political establishment’s coziness with tainted corporations and a target of populist wrath over their excesses. On Thursday, the senator sought to defuse the furor over the latest revelation, holding a conference call with reporters to explain how legislation meant to limit executive compensation was changed at the last minute. That change exempted bonuses protected by contracts, like those at American International Group, a big campaign contributor to Mr. Dodd that received billions in federal bailout money. Mr. Dodd said that his staff revised the bill at the urging of Treasury officials, who he said were concerned that the compensation limits, which he had written in the original legislation, went too far and might invite lawsuits.

- Laser eye surgery has enabled millions of people to throw away their eyeglasses. Now several medical technology companies are hoping that lasers aimed at the feet will allow millions to take their socks off, even in public.

Hartford Courant:

- An executive at mortgage giant Countrywide Financial overrode the company's loan-writing policies to give a discount to Sen. Christopher Dodd, the powerful chairman of the Senate banking committee, according to an internal Countrywide document turned over to congressional investigators and obtained by The Courant. But paperwork, e-mails and other loan documents reviewed as part of the congressional probe include no direct evidence that Dodd was aware at the time that he was getting a discount, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Politico:

- The AIG bonus imbroglio could deliver a one-two punch to President Barack Obama’s plans to help the economy. The insurance giant’s decision to pay out $165 million in bonuses will make it vastly harder to get future bailouts through Congress, and lawmakers’ efforts to get the money by imposing hefty taxes on bonuses could cause other private companies to steer clear of government recovery programs.

Reuters:
- The "smart money" on Wall Street might not be so smart after all. At least not what is publicly known when it comes to placing bets on its own industry. Some of the biggest hedge funds jumped into the maelstrom of sinking financial stocks in the fourth quarter soon after the dramatic bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in mid-September. As a whole, hedge funds were overweight the financial sector during the quarter, according to a review of their equity holdings from U.S. regulatory filings by Thomson Reuters Ownership. However, the data also suggest the biggest hedge funds -- outside a few big stakes -- did not hold financials in the quarter to the degree of the smaller funds.

- Investors pulled a record $42.77 billion out of safe-haven money market funds during the week ended March 18, but where all that cash went is still unclear, data from fund tracker EPFR Global showed on Friday. "The overall tone of the flows this week is that money started flowing back into riskier asset classes such as high yield bonds, technology and a lot more money went into actively managed accounts," Cameron Brandt, global market analyst at EPFR Global in Boston. Brandt said it was not evidently clear from the data as to where the money went but it "is certainly a bullish sign."

Financial Times:
- The Federal Reserve’s bold action this week to boost the US economy with large-scale purchases of government debt created on Thursday fresh headaches for the European Central Bank, which is eschewing such steps in favor of fighting the economic crisis via eurozone banks. The Fed’s surprise move sent the euro sharply higher; on a trade-weighted basis. Europe’s common currency ended on Thursday at its highest this year. With the Swiss National Bank intervening this week to weaken the Swiss franc, the ECB is in danger of appearing to be standing idle as eurozone exporters suffer and deflationary risks build in the 16-country region. “The ECB is definitely under enormous pressure right now because pretty much every big central bank is starting to engage in traditional ‘quantitative easing’ – it has become the orthodoxy,” said Marco Annunziata, chief economist at Unicredit. Erik Nielsen, European economist at Goldman Sachs, argued that at its regular press conference this month, the ECB “should have torn up its usual statement and said ‘look we’re in a very different situation. This is what we’re doing’.” many believe that the ECB will yet be forced to follow the US Fed and Bank of England in embarking on outright asset purchases. Mr Trichet confirmed on Tuesday that “further measures” were being assessed. “That statement in itself – saying that they are looking at the possibility of implementing other measures – means that there must be some view that there are other solutions,” said Jacques Cailloux, European economist at Royal Bank of Scotland. The risks of deflation that would be posed by further euro appreciation, “increases the odds that the ECB will embark in some kind of purchase program even soon than we had anticipated”.

Bear Radar

Style Underperformer:
Small-cap Value (-3.11%)

Sector Underperformers:
Oil Tankers (-8.28%), REITs (-6.63%) and Oil Service (-5.43%)

Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume:
VIV, LUK, STAR, VOCS, INTU, CNQR, CA, ATHR, ASML, ARE, CRS, CGX, YPF and CAI

Stocks With Unusual Put Option Activity:
1) AN 2) DTV 3) HNZ 4) ACH 5) STP

Bull Radar

Style Outperformer:
Large-cap Growth (+.63%)

Sector Outperformers:
Education (+3.46%), Computer Service (+1.23%) and Drugs (+.96%)

Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
DELL, BBL, MRK, JNJ, COP, E, IBM, PEP, KO, UBS, BDC, CGV, JCOM, NTG, CNSL, LLL, PKY, CHFC, WSBC, FORM, MANT, SINA, GILD, SAFT, SHEN, CGRB, BRCM, WDFC, MNRO, THRX, CELG, STNR, AMGN, FAST, ESRX, GLRE, TCBK, BPT, AKO/A, ALG, JAS, UHT and CW

Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
1) EXPE 2) NVLS 3) SINA 4) WIN 5) GLW

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Friday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:

- U.S. hedge funds are buying more of the nation’s stocks than they’re selling for the first time since October, while mutual funds and most other investors remain net sellers, according to UBS AG. In the four weeks ended March 13, net purchases of equities by hedge fund clients of UBS averaged $140 million, according to a March 18 report by David Bianco, the New York-based chief equity strategist at Switzerland’s biggest bank. The inflows into stocks followed 22 straight weeks of outflows. “Those who are supposedly experts at assessing and managing risk are more confident putting capital to work than they were in October and November,” said Peter Kenny, managing director in institutional sales at Knight Equity Markets LP Jersey City, New Jersey. “That’s an indication that the market has made some constructive moves toward building a base.” Mutual funds and other long-only investors such as pension funds and insurance companies, so-called because unlike hedge funds they don’t usually engage in short selling to bet on stock price declines, were net sellers of an average $144.8 million of U.S. shares over the same four-week period.

- Intel Corp.(INTC), the world’s largest chipmaker, had its 2009 profit estimate increased to 30 cents a share from 20 cents at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.(GS), which cited “an uptick in shipments and lower underutilization charges.”

- BlueMountain Capital Management LLC, the New York-based firm overseeing $4.6 billion, began a new fund that will buy high-yield, high-risk corporate loans, betting that the worst of a sell-off in the market is over.

- BlackRock Inc.(BLK), the manager of the world’s largest mining funds, said it’s “too early” to talk of a recovery in metals consumption. Users this year have been “restocking,” or rebuilding inventories, said Evy Hambro, managing director of BlackRock’s $5.2 billion World Mining Fund.

- Oil’s rally above $50 may encourage OPEC members to start releasing more crude into the market before production cuts have had a chance to reduce stockpiles, causing prices to fall again, PetroMatrix GmbH said. Oil’s recovery to a three-month high hasn’t been accompanied by a decline in US crude inventories. Stockpiles are at a two-year high as fuel consumption drops and refiners reduce output. “The current rally could become OPEC’s worst nightmare as it is occurring before oil stocks have been sufficiently reduced,” said Olivier Jakob, managing director of the Zug, Switzerland-based consultant Petromatrix.

Wall Street Journal:

- President Barack Obama reacted coolly to a House bill that would use the tax system to try and confiscate nearly all the bonuses paid to American International Group Inc. employees. It's important, he said, not to "lurch from thing to thing" in trying to address the nation's big problems. "Look, I understand Congress' frustrations," he said on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." But he suggested that legislators were being more vindictive than constructive. "Everybody's angry... but I think that the best way to handle this is to make sure that you close the door before the horse gets out of the barn. And what happened here was the money's already gone out, and people are scrambling to try to find ways to get back at them," he said. From there, he went on to pitch his long-stated proposals to change the tax code by increasing taxes on all upper-income Americans, specifically families earning more than $250,000 a year and individuals earning more than $200,000 annually.

- The Federal Reserve's decision this week to pump an extra $1.15 trillion into the financial system was driven in part by a worry that the U.S. economy has become plagued by increasing slack in the economic chain. From empty hotel rooms to idle factory equipment to workers in part-time jobs, the economy is stuck with excess capacity. This signals that even if the economy turns around tomorrow -- and there have been glimmers of stability in recent weeks, including higher stock prices -- the economy is likely to be operating well below its potential for many months, if not years, to come. Signs of slack are everywhere. The number of vacant homes dotting American neighborhoods was 19 million in the fourth quarter of 2008, up more than three million over three years. Hotel occupancy rates have fallen from 65.5% a year ago to 55.2% in early March, according to Smith Travel Research, a Tennessee firm that tracks the industry. Manufacturing plants ran in February at 67.4% of their capacity, the lowest utilization rate since the Fed began keeping records in 1948. One example of the slack comes from Union Pacific Railroad, the nation's largest railroad. It has the capacity to run 200,000 carloads weekly, but is running only 150,000. "As volumes remain soft, we are acting aggressively to right-size our resources, furloughing 3,600 employees, storing over 1,400 locomotives, and parking 53,000 freight cars," Rob Knight, the firm's chief financial officer, told investors in a conference call last week. The clearest signs of slack are in the job market. On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that new claims for unemployment benefits slid last week by a seasonally adjusted 12,000 to 646,000, but the four-week average rose slightly to 654,750, a 26-year high. The total number of Americans drawing weekly benefits jumped to nearly 5.5 million, a new high.

- The acting chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says the nation should have a new network of power lines to carry wind power across the country, providing a rationale for Democratic legislation that would give the agency authority to permit power lines where it sees fit even over state and local objections. FERC Chairman-designate Jon Wellinghoff says he envisions a new grid system that can carry electricity from the wind-rich Midwest to New York, Washington DC, Atlanta, and other eastern cities. Longer term, he says, wind turbines off the Atlantic coast that could generate wind energy that would flow in the other direction, from east to west. One way to avoid controversy over the location of new power lines could be to run them along railroad rights of way, Mr. Wellinghoff said in an interview.

- Opposition from the banking industry and moderate Senate Republicans and Democrats has stalled a proposal to allow judges to modify mortgages in bankruptcy court. The measure known as "cramdown," is endorsed by President Barack Obama and Congressional Democratic leaders as part of a sweeping administration plan to help strapped homeowners. But with Congress due to start a two-week spring recess April 6, Senate negotiators have been unable to lure a handful of moderate votes needed to pass the bill in the Senate.

- Amid the global downturn, a number of intrepid investors are dipping their toes into the waters of an unlikely haven: Iraq. Energy investors have long been sounding out opportunities in the oil-rich country. But as security here continues to improve, nonoil investors are giving Iraq a first serious look.

MarketWatch.com:
- Responding to the anger over $165 million in bonuses paid to AIG traders, the House approved a bill Thursday that would impose a punitive 90% tax on bonuses paid by American International Group Inc. and other financial companies that receive federal help. The vote was 328-93, with about half of the Republicans joining almost all Democrats voting in favor. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner acknowledged in an interview with CNN late Thursday that he knew recently-passed stimulus legislation included a loophole that could allow AIG (AIG) to keep its controversial bonuses. Criticism had recently been leveled at Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, for including language in the stimulus bill that restricted bonuses and golden parachutes, but allowed AIG to retain its particular bonuses thanks to a "grandfather" clause.

- Sales of video game software in the U.S. saw modest growth during the month of February -- largely in line with Wall Street's estimates -- as action titles such as "Street Fighter" and "Killzone" drew in customers. For the month, sales of game software rose 9% to $733.5 million, according to data from NPD Group on Thursday. Analysts were expecting sales growth of 5-10% for the month.

CNBC.com:
- The White House and Congress are rushing to write legislation that allows the federal government to take over and unwind the businesses of a large financial institution—such as AIG(AIG) or Citigroup(C)—the way it now can with commercial banks, CNBC has learned.

- British luxury carmaker Jaguar surged to the top of J.D. Power and Associates' closely watched vehicle dependability study this year, tying Buick for the No. 1 spot and dethroning Lexus for the first time since the Japanese luxury brand has been a part of the survey.

NY Times:

- The question was direct and prescient. Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, asked the Treasury secretary in an open hearing what could be done to stop American International Group from paying $165 million in bonuses to hundreds of employees in the very unit that had nearly destroyed the company. Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, responded by saying that executive pay in the financial industry had gotten “out of whack” in recent years, and pledged to crack down on exorbitant pay at companies like A.I.G. that were being bailed out with billons of taxpayer dollars. The exchange took place before the House Ways and Means Committee on March 3 — one week before Mr. Geithner claims he first learned that the failed insurance company was about to pay a round of bonuses that have since caused a political uproar. Interviews with senior Federal Reserve and Treasury officials, as well as members of Congress, leave little doubt that the bonus program was a disaster hiding in plain sight. Mr. Geithner is not the only one who appears not to have understood the populist fury the bonuses would set off. Career staff officials at the Treasury, Fed and Federal Reserve Bank of New York exchanged e-mail messages about the A.I.G. bonus program as early as late February, according to a person familiar with the matter. A.I.G. itself revealed the bonus plan in regulatory filings last September. In early February, Mr. Geithner opposed a provision in the economic stimulus bill that would have slapped a steep tax on the kind of bonuses that A.I.G. was about to pay. If A.I.G.’s plan to pay out an additional $165 million in bonuses came as a surprise to Mr. Geithner, it did not come as a surprise to staff at the Treasury, the Federal Reserve in Washington or the New York Fed.

BusinessWeek:

- Iraq’s Oil Minister Speaks to BusinessWeek. Hussein Al-Shahristani is trying to persuade global oil giants to invest $35 billion to move Iraqi oil production to 6 million barrels a day. Iraq's Oil Minister, Hussein Al-Shahristani, finds himself in a crucial role. Iraqi oil production has been stuck at around 2 million to 2.5 million barrels per day since the ouster of Saddam Hussein. That's considered well below the country's capability.

IBD:

- Americans have cut back sharply on new auto purchases. But that only means they're driving their old cars longer. And that translates into more sales of batteries, fuel pumps and other replacement parts sold by O'Reilly Automotive (ORLY).

Financial Times:
- Barack Obama stepped out from behind his teleprompter on Thursday for an off-the-cuff question-and-answer session with voters in California. But the spontaneity failed to quell growing criticism of his heavy use of the electronic speech aid, after a technical glitch this week highlighted its fallibility. US presidents have used teleprompters since their invention but Mr Obama relies on them more than his predecessors, reading from the see-through screens for even the briefest statements. Some critics have even labelled him the Teleprompter President. Perhaps it is not surprising that, at a time of economic crisis, the White House wants to ensure the president is word-perfect, in contrast to the frequent verbal slips made by his predecessor, George W. Bush. But Maureen Dowd, the influential New York Times columnist, argued on Thursday that the device was stripping Mr Obama of authenticity at a time of mounting populist anger over the economy. “Barack Obama even needs a teleprompter to get mad,” she wrote.

Shanghai Securities News:

- Ren Xingzhou, a researcher at the State Council’s Development Research Center, said China’s property market isn’t stable and it’s too early to say that it has recovered. The market will continue to “correct” this year because of the global financial crisis and slower domestic real estate investment and economic growth, Ren said.

Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Citigroup:

- Upgraded (EXPE) to Buy, target $14.

Night Trading
Asian Indices are -.50 to +.50% on average.
S&P 500 futures -.49%.
NASDAQ 100 futures -.29%.

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Other Potential Market Movers
- The Fed Chairman Bernanke speaking on “The Financial Crisis and Community Banking” could also impact trading today.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mixed, as losses in financial stocks are offset by gains in commodity stocks in the region. I expect US equities to open modestly lower and to rally into the afternoon, finishing mixed. The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into the day.

Stocks Finish Lower, Weighed Down by Financial, Airline and REIT Shares

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