Bull Radar

Style Outperformer:
Small-cap Growth (+1.56%)

Sector Outperformers:
HMOs (+3.43%), Alt Energy (+3.22%) and Computer Hardware (+3.03%)

Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
TLEO, INFY, BBV, SNP, MRK, BP, AZN, STP, ELP, MFW, PWRD, FUQI, CHFC, RNOW, PALM, CBST, CMED, UFPI, SAIA, REGN, MSFT, CSKI, ARST, PEET, FFIC, BHLB, NBTB, HMSY, AGO, KMX, NNI, CNC, TPX, HSP and DLX

Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
1) SPLS 2) MDT 3) DHR 4) ESRX 5) CI

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Friday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:

- China’s copper demand may drop in the next quarter as the State Reserve Bureau will probably cease purchases and as consumption in the world’s largest metals buyer weakens, a trader at Jiangxi Copper Co. said. Prices will decline in the next two to three months as Chinese imports fall, Zhao Mingwang, manager of futures trading at Jiangxi Copper Products Co., said in a phone interview. Falling exports and profits, overcapacity and rising unemployment are making it harder to revive economic growth in the world’s third-largest economy, China’s cabinet said June 17. “Demand is not as good as people had expected,” Zhao said. “In the second half, the SRB is unlikely to buy more, so copper price fluctuations will solely rely on real demand. The third quarter will be a slow season, so we expect copper to fall.” “SRB’s purchases are coming to an end,” Jiangxi Copper’s Zhao said. Prices have rallied and SRB has met its stockpiling target, he added, without elaborating. Rising inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange is a sign of falling demand, Zhao said. The inventories grew by 15,167 tons to 60,647 tons as of June 12, exchange data showed.

- Office prices and rental rates in Perth’s business district will fall as much as 50 percent by 2013 from last year’s highs as mining projects stall and new blocks are completed, real-estate forecasters and agents said. Vacancies in the center have risen from a record low of 0.3 percent last June, among the tightest in the world, to about 6 percent and will jump to 16 percent by mid-2010, said Lee Walker, at Sydney-based forecaster BIS Shrapnel. The rate will peak in 2013, with average prime rents dropping to A$360 ($286) per square meter from A$720 now, he said. “Perth has been geared up to service an absolute booming level of investment,” said Walker in a phone interview from Sydney. “A downturn of this magnitude spells disaster for employment growth, hitting demand for office space.”

- Leading Republicans on a House panel that will consider the Obama administration’s overhaul of financial regulations said the president’s plan would continue a cycle of taxpayer-funded bailouts. Representative Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the Financial Services Committee, and his colleagues on the panel echoed concerns among others on Capitol Hill that President Barack Obama’s proposal would give too much power to the Federal Reserve and distract from its monetary-policy duties.

- The US dollar may extend its gain against the euro on speculation changes in how the London interbank offered rate is set may increase the borrowing costs for the greenback outside the U.S. The dollar rose versus the euro yesterday for the first time in three days after British Bankers’ Association said it may allow more institutions to take part in the daily survey that sets Libor, the benchmark for more than $360 trillion of financial products around the world. Investors also abandoned bets that the euro would appreciate further after the common European currency failed to strengthen beyond $1.40. “It would be a wider group of banks, so some ‘weaker’ ones who would submit higher rates, thus Libor would aggregate higher,” said Scott Ainsbury, a portfolio manager at New York- based FX Concepts Inc., the world’s largest currency hedge fund with about $12 billion in assets.

- Yields on bonds backed by commercial mortgages fell relative to benchmark interest rates for the third day to the lowest this month as new offerings boosted investor interest. The yield gap, or spread, relative to the benchmark swap rate on top-rated bonds backed by commercial real estate fell 68 basis points to 6.83 percentage points today, the lowest since June 2, according to Bank of America Corp. data. On June 15, the spread was 8.39 percentage points.

- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he has ordered the U.S. military to take defensive measures should North Korea attempt to fire a ballistic missile toward Hawaii, even as officials express skepticism of the possibility. “I think we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect American territory,” Gates told reporters at the Pentagon today. Gates said he has directed the deployment of a missile interceptor system known as Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, to Hawaii and the positioning of a sea- based radar system near the U.S. state. The U.S. is making the preparations as North Korea threatens to conduct further missile tests in retaliation for a United Nations Security Council resolution approved on June 12 that imposes more penalties on the regime for previous tests. The military also is watching a North Korean ship under the resolution’s authorization for the interdiction of vessels suspected of carrying illegal cargo for the regime’s nuclear or missile development efforts.

- In 1989, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then the most powerful figure in Iran, supported Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s appointment as supreme spiritual leader. Now, the two men are locked in conflict amid a wave of protests against the June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Khamenei ally. Rafsanjani supports Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says that he won the vote and has drawn hundreds of thousands of Iranians into the streets to rally behind him. Ahmadinejad and Mousavi are the public faces of a power struggle among Iran’s ruling clerics. As the country is swept up in protests not seen since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the conflict risks undermining the regime’s existence, said Mohammad-Reza Djalili, an Iran expert at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

- Hog futures may fall as much as 15 percent in the next four months as pork demand wanes and U.S. producers send herds to slaughter, putting more meat on the market, said Ryan Turner of broker FCStone Group Inc.

- The market for trading rights to spew carbon dioxide, created by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce global warming, is under attack by developing countries and environmentalists as negotiators hammer out a sequel treaty. Investors who trade pollution permits are fighting proposals to limit or kill a United Nations program that lets European companies offset requirements to cut emissions by bankrolling low-carbon projects in emerging economies. The process creates allowances that the World Bank says accounted for 26 percent of the $126 billion of credits that traded in the carbon market in 2008. China and Mexico want wealthier governments to subsidize clean-up projects directly, with the Chinese saying investments from Western companies should “not be used to offset” their own cuts. Greenpeace International says the UN system delays rich nations’ response to greenhouse gasses. Their approaches would reduce the private sector’s role in, and potential profits from, the global-warming fight.

Wall Street Journal:

- After steering clear of big deals for the better part of a year, China Investment Corp., the country's $200 billion sovereign-wealth fund, is showing renewed interest in putting cash to work, and hedge-fund managers are poised to benefit. Blackstone Group LP(BX) is at the forefront of the latest discussions. The Chinese fund, known as CIC, could within a matter of days commit $500 million, and maybe more, to the division of Blackstone that manages hedge-fund investments, according to people familiar with the situation.

- Target Corp., Harley-Davidson Inc., Pitney Bowes Inc. and dozens of other companies that aren't banks but pitch loans and other financial products are being squeezed by the Obama administration's financial-overhaul plan. One proposal being pushed by the White House takes aim at industrial loan companies, which are allowed under their state-issued charters to collect federally insured deposits, offer credit cards, make loans and process financial transactions without facing as much scrutiny as traditional banks regulated by the U.S. government. President Barack Obama wants companies with ILC charters to register as bank-holding companies with the Federal Reserve. That would put them in the same regulatory category as Bank of America Corp. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., subjecting the non-banks to much greater government oversight. If that happens, most companies with ILC charters likely would close them down, potentially shutting off another source of credit for consumers, industry experts predict. That's because the companies might not be able to satisfy the Fed's capital and other requirements, and thus would be ineligible to become bank-holding companies, or they would balk at heavier regulation.

- The White House said Thursday it was seeking ways to include same-sex marriages, unions and partnerships in 2010 Census data, the second time in a week the administration has signaled a policy change of interest to the gay community.

- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM) said Friday it plans to raise its capital expenditure this year to the same level as last year's US$1.9 billion, a signal that conditions in the chip industry are improving.

MarketWatch.com:
- The Bank of Japan's policymakers agreed at their May 21-22 meeting that a fall in production was coming to a halt but that the threat of rising deflation needed close watching, according to meeting minutes released Friday.

CNBC.com:
- This year's peak home-buying season was lackluster, as buyers seeking to trade up to larger houses were absent, said the head of one of the country's largest real estate firms. Jim Gillespie, president and chief executive of Coldwell Banker Real Estate, in an interview with Reuters, said sales were only modest during the spring, with demand overwhelmingly dominated by first-time home buyers and investors.

- The Treasury announced Thursday a record $104 billion worth of bond auctions for next week, part of its herculean efforts to finance a rescue of the world's largest economy. The sales will exceed the previous record of $101 billion set in auctions that took place in the last week of April and consist of two-year, five-year and seven-year securities. That record was matched by another $101 billion week in May. Though next week's total was broadly in line with expectations, worries about supply have weighed on the U.S. government bond market, which will see a mammoth $2 trillion worth of new debt issued this year.

- Investors typically look to small cap stocks as the leaders out of a recession. More nimble than their large-cap counterparts, small cap companies are quicker to adapt during both economic downturns and periods of recovery. That’s particularly true in the technology sector, where innovation and emerging market segments provide opportunities for rapid growth.

NY Times:

- American computer makers say the Chinese government has not backed down from a requirement that Internet censorship software be preinstalled on all computers sold in China after July 1, despite reports this week that the rule had been relaxed.

- When a company called Ausra filed plans for a big solar power plant in California, it was deluged with demands from a union group that it study the effect on creatures like the short-nosed kangaroo rat and the ferruginous hawk. By contrast, when a competitor, BrightSource Energy, filed plans for an even bigger solar plant that would affect the imperiled desert tortoise, the same union group, California Unions for Reliable Energy, raised no complaint. Instead, it urged regulators to approve the project as quickly as possible. One big difference between the projects? Ausra had rejected demands that it use only union workers to build its solar farm, while BrightSource pledged to hire labor-friendly contractors. As California moves to license dozens of huge solar power plants to meet the state’s renewable energy goals, some developers contend they are being pressured to sign agreements pledging to use union labor. If they refuse, they say, they can count on the union group to demand costly environmental studies and deliver hostile testimony at public hearings. If they commit at the outset to use union labor, they say, the environmental objections never materialize.

- A crackdown on credit limits by card companies is squeezing the nation’s 27 million small businesses, exacerbating the problems brought on by a stagnant economy. Owning a small business has always been a challenge — half wind up failing within the first few years. But the financial crisis has dealt them a one-two punch, as big banks cut the credit card lines that many entrepreneurs were forced to lean on when a once-abundant supply of loans dried up. As of April, 59 percent of America’s small firms relied on credit cards to help finance their day-to-day operations, up from 44 percent at the end of last year, according to the National Small Business Association.

Business Week:
- ‘Cash for Clunkers’ Bill Passes. Originally intended to get gas guzzlers off the road, it will mainly help automakers sell more pickups and SUVs. Senate Democrats defeated a Republican effort to kill a $1 billion "cash for clunkers" program that provides government incentives of $3,500 to $4,500 to car buyers who trade in old gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient vehicles. But in passing the bill on June 18 as an add-on to funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Democrats also defeated the "green" wing of their own party, who wanted to do much more to favor the purchase of passenger cars over pickup trucks and SUVs. The bill, which President Barack Obama is expected to sign, will enable many consumers who take advantage of the program to buy trucks that are barely more fuel-efficient than their old guzzlers.

- BusinessWeek and YouNoodle's list of 50 tech startups includes young companies like Cloudera, Project Better Place, and Scribd that are poised for growth.

CNNMoney.com:

- Lines form for the new iPhone in New York and Tokyo.

Politico:

- The Senate Finance Committee has significantly scaled back its health care bill in reaction to the $1.6 trillion pricetag that congressional budget analysts gave to an earlier version of the bill. The committee is considering smaller subsidies for low-income families to purchase insurance, and a limited expansion of Medicaid, according a 10-page outline distributed Thursday to Democratic health policy aides on the Finance Committee. The proposal does not include a public insurance plan, although it does detail an idea offered by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) to create nonprofit insurance cooperatives. It was labeled an “open issue,” as was the parameters of the employer mandate.

Boston Globe:

- Laid off from Wall Street? The CIA wants you -- as long as you can pass a lie detector test and show that you are motivated by service to your country rather than your wallet. The Central Intelligence Agency has been advertising for recruits and will be holding interviews on June 22 at a secret location in New York. "Economics, finance and business professionals, if the quest for the bottom line is just not enough for you, the Central Intelligence Agency has a mission like no other," one radio advertisement for the agency says.

Reuters:

- The U.S. economy sprouted more green shoots of recovery in data released on Thursday, with weekly jobs figures showing unexpected improvement and the slumping factory sector revealing dramatic signs of a rebound.

- Now that Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS) has settled its $10 billion debt with the U.S. taxpayer, investors are wondering about the Wall Street firm's other looming presence -- Warren Buffett.

Commercial Times:
- Quanta Computer Inc. may ship 3 million notebook computers this month, including Apple Inc. MacBooks, citing officials in the computer industry. The company may ship 14.5 million notebook computers in the first half, exceeding Compal Electronics Inc.’s 14.1 million. Quanta’s third-quarter shipments may increase more than 20%. Quanta is the world’s largest maker of notebook computers.

Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Citigroup:

- Reiterated Buy on (OI), target raised to $33.

- Reiterated Buy on (HSY), added to Top Picks Live list target $43.

Night Trading
Asian Indices are unch. to +.75% on average.

Asia Ex-Japan Inv Grd CDS Index -.34%.
S&P 500 futures +.16%.
NASDAQ 100 futures +.31%.

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- (KMX)/.05

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- None of note

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

Stocks Finish Slightly Higher, Boosted by HMO, Hospital, Bank adn Utility Shares

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In Play

Stocks Slightly Higher into Final Hour on Less Financial Sector Pessimism and Diminishing Economic Fear

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio is slightly higher into the final hour on gains in my Defense longs, Biotech longs, Medical longs and Financial longs. I have not traded today, thus leaving the Portfolio 75% net long. The tone of the market is mildly positive as the advance/decline line is slightly higher, most sectors are rising and volume is about average. Investor anxiety is high. Today’s overall market action is mildly bullish. The VIX is falling 5.77% and is high at 29.72. The ISE Sentiment Index is low at 109.0 and the total put/call is above average at .95. Finally, the NYSE Arms has been running about average most of the day, hitting 1.15 at its intraday peak, and is currently .92. The Euro Financial Sector Credit Default Swap Index is rising 3.74% today to 117.0 basis points. This index is down from its record March 10th high of 208.75. The North American Investment Grade Credit Default Swap Index is falling .76% to 141.42 basis points. This index is also well below its Dec. 5^th record high of 285.99. The TED spread is falling 2.99% to 44 basis points. The TED spread is now down 420 basis points since its all-time high of 463 basis points on October 10th. The 2-year swap spread is soaring 20.58% to 50.25 basis points. The Libor-OIS spread is falling 2.66% to 37 basis points. The 10-year TIPS spread, a good gauge of inflation expectations, is rising 14 basis points to 1.91%, which is down 73 basis points since July 7th. The 3-month T-Bill is yielding .17%, which is up 1 basis point today. The most economically sensitive stocks are underperforming again today, despite a much-better-than-expected Philly Fed report. However, the Morgan Stanley Consumer Index is jumping 1.89%. Homebuilders are especially weak, declining 2.1%. Market breadth has been relatively poor again throughout the day. Healthcare-related stocks are substantially outperforming again on the hopes of scaled-back government reform. It is a big positive that the (XLF) can rise meaningfully today despite the 15 basis point jump in the 10-year yield. However, yields need to stabilize soon or they are likely to pressure the broad market again. The AAII & Bulls fell to 33.3% this week, while the % Bears rose to 46.4%, which remains a positive. Nikkei futures indicate a -30 open in Japan and DAX futures indicate an +14 open in Germany tomorrow. I expect US stocks to trade mixed-to-lower into the close from current levels on more shorting, profit-taking, rising credit market angst and higher long-term rates.

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

- Fixed U.S. mortgage rates fell for the first time in four weeks, easing concern higher borrowing costs would discourage refinancing and deepen the housing slump.The average 30-year rate dropped to 5.38 percent from 5.59 percent a week earlier, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac of McLean, Virginia, said today in a statement.

- Real yields are the highest since 1994 after a government report showed consumer prices over the last 12 months fell the most in 60 years. The real yield approached 5% yesterday, the most since it was above 5% in December 1994, signaling bond investors concerned about inflation have pushed yields too high too quickly, according to Michael Shaoul, CEO at NY-based institutional brokerage Oscar Gruss & Son Inc. “We continue to believe that long-term Treasury yields have marked their high point for the current phase,” he said.

- North Korea may have deployed more than 600 Scud and other short-range missile aimed at South Korea and up to 320 medium-range Rodong missiles targeting Japan, the International Crisis Group said in a report today. The communist nation, which tested its second nuclear bomb last month, has between six and 12 nuclear weapons, “or at least explosive devices,” the Brussels-based organization said in an e-mailed statement today.

- India’s wholesale prices fell for the first time in three decades, giving the government scope to spend more in next month’s budget to spur economic growth. The benchmark wholesale-price inflation index declined 1.61 percent in the week to June 6 from a year earlier after gaining 0.13 percent in the previous week, the government said today. That’s the first drop since December 1978, according to the central bank’s monthly data.

- WebMD Health Corp.(WBMD), a provider of online health information, agreed to buy parent Hlth Corp.(HLTH) in an all-stock deal valued at $1.29 billion. It’s the second time the interlocked companies have tried to merge in 16 months.

- Apple Inc.(AAPL) may sell half a million iPhone 3G S models in their first weekend on sale, half as many as the previous version, because the device debuts in fewer countries, according to Piper Jaffray & Co.

- Treasuries fell for a second day as reports showed the deepest recession in 50 years may be ending and the U.S. said note sales will increase to a record $104 billion next week. Ten-year yields climbed from a two-week low amid concern President Barack Obama’s record borrowing will overwhelm demand as manufacturing in the Philadelphia region contracted in June at the slowest pace in nine months and U.S. leading indicators rose more than forecast in May. The difference in yield between 2- and 10-year notes widened to 2.56 percentage points, the most in over a week.

- The U.S. House rejected by a single vote today a Republican proposal to keep President Barack Obama from closing the prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Lawmakers voted 213-212 against an amendment by Representative Jerry Lewis of California to ban the Department of Justice from spending any money next year to implement Obama’s Jan. 22 order to close the prison. The proposal, which came as lawmakers debated the Justice Department’s budget, split Democrats, with dozens siding with Republicans.

- New York City’s unemployment rose a full percentage point to 9 percent last month, the second- biggest jump in the past 33 years after February’s record, according to state Labor Department data. The jobless rate in the most populous U.S. city reached the highest since October 1997, while unemployment in New York state overall rose to a 16-year high of 8.2 percent in May, the department said today.

- The euro tumbled against the dollar after failing to strengthen beyond $1.40, prompting traders to close out bets that the common European currency would appreciate further. “We spent all morning trying to break $1.40 and got rejected again,” said Brian Dolan, chief currency strategist at FOREX.com, a unit of online currency trading firm Gain Capital in Bedminster, New Jersey. “We are testing $1.3885, the trend line now. If breaks, we have more room to go.”

Wall Street Journal:

- The Obama administration's proposed regulatory overhaul could force big changes at financial firms. But one large lender, GE Capital, may find them especially painful. Though General Electric's lending arm has $613 billion in assets, it isn't a bank-holding company like, say, J.P. Morgan Chase. If the administration's changes become law, GE Capital, because of its size and reach, would likely be classified as systemically important. Such firms face a stricter regulatory regime. For GE Capital, the adjustment could be tricky. Perhaps the biggest potential headache for GE is a demand that regulatory supervision should cover any systemically important firm's parent company and other subsidiaries. Under the proposed rules, these firms also would face restrictions on "nonfinancial activity." Since GE would be unlikely to countenance limits on its industrial businesses, it might become necessary to split off GE Capital.

- The Guardian Council, one of Iran's top oversight bodies, said Thursday it would invite the country's three unsuccessful presidential challengers to a meeting, while protests again filled the streets of the capital. The move by the council was the latest in a series of unprecedented concessions to the losers in June 12 elections, which officials said were won in a landslide by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mir Hossein Mousavi and two other presidential challengers have alleged vote rigging, a charge Mr. Ahmadinejad has denied.

- Back before recorded history, in 1965, Congress erected the nation's first two monuments to health-care "reform," Medicaid and Medicare. Medicaid was described at the time as a modest solution to the problem of health care for the poor. It would be run by the states and "monitored" by the federal government. The reform known as Medicaid is worth our attention now because Mr. Obama is more or less demanding that the nation accept another reform, his "optional" federalized health insurance program. He suggested several times before the AMA that opposition to it will consist of "scare tactics" and "fear mongering." Whatever Medicaid's merits, this federal health-care program more than any other factor has put California and New York on the brink of fiscal catastrophe. I'd even call it scary.

NY Times:

- North Korea may fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese newspaper said Thursday, amid escalating tensions between the communist country and the United States over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. The missile, believed to be a long-range Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea's Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan's top-selling newspaper. The report cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites. The Yomiuri said the Taepodong-2 could fly over Japan and toward Hawaii, but that it would not be able to hit the main islands of Hawaii, which lie about 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the Korean peninsula. The missile launch could come between July 4 and 8, the paper said. It noted that North Korea had fired its first Taepodong-2 missile on July 4, 2006. Also, July 8 is the anniversary of the 1994 death of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.

Fox News:

- The U.S. military is tracking a flagged North Korean ship suspected of proliferating weapons material in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution passed last Friday, FOX News has learned. The ship, Kang Nam, left a port in North Korea Wednesday and could be carrying weaponry, missile parts or nuclear materials. The U.S. military has been tracking it since its departure. "It is believed to be 'of interest,'" a senior U.S. official told FOX News.

NY Post:

- Bailed-out Bank of America(BAC) has been doling out millions in bonuses in an effort to lure talent and keep investment bankers who management views as vital, sources tell The Post. Among those who are said to have received payouts are two former Merrill Lynch bankers, Fares Noujaim, who was recently appointed as BofA's vice chairman of investment banking, and Harry McMahon, a well-connected West Coast-based banker. Both were offered guarantees not to leave the firm. Noujaim, a former Bear Stearns banker who joined Merrill last year, is said to have received roughly $15 million over two years. Sources say Noujaim -- a well-regarded banker focusing on the Middle East -- was offered a vice-chairman role, and may have been offered at least $5 million more to stay. The guarantees being shelled out by the embattled bank run by CEO Ken Lewis are raising eyebrows on Wall Street because BofA has taken $45 billion in capital from the Troubled Asset Relief Program and hasn't been allowed to refund that money.

Miami Herald:

- For the first time in years, South Florida's international trade numbers are declining. The world economic crisis has reduced trade in the Miami Customs District by 12.8 percent -- more than $3.6 billion -- during the first four months of this year, said Ken Roberts, president of WorldCity, a Miami-based media company that tracks imports and exports. During the first four months of last year, South Florida trade increased by 14.6 percent. For full-year 2008, trade grew by more than 14 percent to a record high of $90.2 billion. ''The decline in trade has accelerated since the beginning of the year,'' Roberts said Wednesday at a WorldCity conference in Miami. ``Every year, trade has gone up. So when it goes down, it's startling.'' As bad as the Miami District figures were, however, trade for the entire country fell by even more -- about 28 percent, Roberts said. ``U.S. trade this year has dropped to the 2004 level.''

AP:

- The Senate has unanimously passed a resolution apologizing for slavery and racial segregation and sent the measure to the House.

FINalternatives:

- President Barack Obama’s long-awaited financial regulation reform seems to have let hedge funds off relatively easy, for the time being. While other jurisdictions, notably the European Union, consider substantially stricter measures to limit hedge funds’ activities, the Obama plan doesn’t have any specific restrictions at all.

USA Today:

- The United States is closer to no longer being a United Nations deadbeat. The House of Representatives passed a war-funding bill Tuesday that includes about $900 million for U.N. peacekeeping missions and related activities. That funding includes $175 million in arrears accrued since fiscal year 2005, according to the United Nations Foundation, a charitable group that promotes U.N. causes. The United States is the United Nations' biggest donor, but Congress capped payments for peacekeeping and didn't pay its bill in full. "This is a strong indication of the Obama administration's commitment to working with the U.N.," U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said. For years, Republican conservatives such as North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms urged withholding payments to prompt an overhaul of the way the bureaucratic United Nations does business.

Reuters:
- Loomis Sayles' Dan Fuss said on Thursday the U.S. recession is over and the United States is set for a prolonged recovery that may take until 2011 to fully blossom.

Globe and Mail:

- One of the biggest threats to Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan's (POT) profit is stacked in the back room of the All Points Co-Op in rural Nebraska. That's where manager Gregg Anderson piles the bags and bags of fertilizer he can't sell. "We bought the stuff when it was at its peak last year," says Mr. Anderson, who manages the co-op in Gothenburg, about 400 kilometers west of Omaha. "Now we're stuck with it. I offer it to customers, but they're digging in their heels and saying they aren't going to pay that kind of price. So they go without." Farmers, it appears, are proving to be more price sensitive than people thought, and are gambling that fertilizer sellers like Mr. Anderson will lower their prices next year. That, in turn, is having an effect in places like Saskatoon, where Potash Corp. announced yet another cut to production, an 800,000-tonne curtailment that brings its total reductions to 5.5 million tons since August. The clog in the supply chain has pushed global stockpiles of fertilizer 100 per cent above their five-year average, Goldman Sachs estimates.

Maeil Business Newspaper:

- Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. will raise prices for dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, later this month, citing a person in the semiconductor industry.

China Finance:

- China may increase its holdings of US Treasuries in the “near” term should the dollar remain stable, citing Dai Zianglong, chairman of China’s national pension fund.

Emirates Business 24/7:
- Emirates Steel Industries plans to boost annual steel-rolling capacity by 50%. Capacity will be increased to 6.5 million tons by 2014.

Haaretz.com:

- Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday that Israel could not accept the Obama administration's demand to "completely" halt activity in West Bank settlements. "We have no intention to change the demographic balance in Judea and Samaria," Lieberman said during his talks with the secretary of state in Washington. "Everywhere people are born, people die, and we cannot accept a vision of stopping completely the settlements. We have to keep the natural growth." Still, he said, Israel "ready for direct negotiations with the Palestinians."