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Bloomberg:
- The Federal Reserve should be forced to identify companies that received loans from the central bank because it can’t demonstrate that borrowers would be harmed by the disclosure, according to lawyers who won a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. There’s nothing proprietary in the details sought by the Bloomberg News unit of Bloomberg LP, the New York-based company majority-owned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, attorneys for the company said today in court papers. The filing by Bloomberg opposes the Fed’s request for a court to halt disclosure of information while an appeal proceeds.
- Russian steelmakers’ plans for world domination are in tatters. A spending spree on
- Manufacturers such as Caterpillar Inc.(CAT) and Apple Inc.(AAPL) wouldn’t have to post extra cash as collateral for hedging transactions under legislation proposed to tighten oversight of the $592 trillion derivatives market. The draft bill released by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank on Oct. 2, drawn from Obama administration proposals, would require the most common and actively traded over-the-counter derivatives contracts to be bought and sold on exchanges or processed through a regulated trading platform. It would impose new rules and collateral requirements, except on so-called end users such as Caterpillar.
- MGM Mirage(MGM) and Dubai World, owners of the largest development on the Las Vegas Strip, cut the price of condominiums at the CityCenter project by 30 percent for existing buyers to reflect the collapse in housing prices. The reductions will be offered at residences at Mandarin Oriental,
- American International Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche’s $10.5 million annual pay package was approved by Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master on compensation. Feinberg completed his review after New York-based AIG provided him with details of Benmosche’s previous compensation and pay comparisons with other leaders, according to a Treasury Department letter dated Oct. 2. Benmosche, named CEO of the bailed-out insurer in August, will get a $7 million salary and as much as $3.5 million in long-term incentives.
- Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said that the U.S. is likely to undergo “a very slow process” of recovery and probably won’t endure a double-dip recession. “We’re going to have to be tolerant of slower growth than we’re used to,” Fisher said in a televised interview today with PBS’ Nightly Business Report. When asked whether the
- Samsung Electronics Co., Asia’s biggest maker of chips, flat screens and mobile phones, reported third-quarter earnings more than doubled, exceeding analysts’ estimates, helped by a rebound in prices. Operating profit jumped to as high as 4.3 trillion won ($3.7 billion), compared with 1.48 trillion won a year earlier, the
Wall Street Journal:
- U.S. light-vehicle sales are beginning to show signs of improvement, according to an automobile market researcher that forecasts sales will jump 9.6% in 2010 to 11.2 million. R.L. Polk & Co., in raising its 2010 forecast by 400,000 vehicles, said the bottoming out of the housing market, expansion in manufacturing and improved consumer sentiment were signs the economic recovery was under way. "We are confident the worst is behind us, said Dave Goebel, a Polk consultant. "We also believe the 'cash for clunkers' program will have little to no impact on 2010 sales, because the overall economic outlook has improved since earlier this year and this serves auto makers well as they bring new models into their showrooms." A number of analysts, including Global Insight Data, have said auto sales, on track to hit the lowest levels in decades, will begin to recover next year.
- Democratic lawmakers in a handful of states are facing pressure from Republicans to distance themselves from the Service Employees International Union as a result of its ties to Acorn. Republicans in
- Financial industry groups eager to shape congressional regulatory overhaul proposals plan to press U.S. House lawmakers Tuesday on the registration of hedge funds, scaling back mandatory arbitration clauses, and balancing oversight of investment advisers and broker-dealers. Representatives from the private-equity and hedge-fund universe will be among those testifying before the House Financial Services Committee on a range of proposals to boost investor protections and tighten oversight of investment funds that typically fall outside rigorous government purview. Highlighting the difficulty for policy makers attempting to shepherd an ambitious financial regulatory system overhaul through Congress this year, the message from industry participants shows few areas of solid agreement. "Requiring open-ended disclosures to these third parties, as the draft contemplates, is highly problematic," Douglas Lowenstein, president and chief executive of the Private Equity Council, said in his prepared remarks.
- Google Inc.(GOOG), which has long championed the belief that advertising should be less about art and more about science, is working harder to embrace its inner creative side. As it searches for new growth, the company has in recent months focused more on creating custom ad campaigns spanning multiple Google services for big spenders like Hewlett-Packard Co. and Ford Motor Co. Since the summer, Google has helped J.C. Penney Co. and PepsiCo Inc.'s Quaker Oats unit launch ad campaigns on YouTube and across the hundreds of thousands of sites across which Google sells display ads, along with search ads. As part of the shift, Google is thinking up and tailoring more ad campaigns in close consultation with ad agencies. In May, the
- The Obama administration is expected on Tuesday to unveil an outline of sweeping changes for the nation's immigration-detention system, saying it will decide whom to lock up and for how long based on the danger and flight risk posed by detainees. Officials familiar with the report said the administration is pledging to revise detention standards and will turn to the private sector for ideas, asking for proposals to construct two model facilities. Until now, the Obama administration has been reluctant to revise detention standards, which were updated late in the administration of former President George W. Bush. The immigration detention system expanded dramatically during the Bush years as the government took a much tougher line against illegal immigrants. The moves come in response to criticisms of the system over issues including the quality of medical treatment given to detainees and their inability to access basic services, such as phones to speak with lawyers.
- In President Obama's Washington, medical specialists are slightly more popular than the H1N1 virus. Compared to bread-and-butter primary care doctors, specialists cost more to train and make more use of expensive procedures and technology—and therefore cost the government more money. Even so, the quiet war Democrats are waging on specialists is astonishing.
MarketWatch.com:
- The Reserve Bank of Australia Tuesday surprised by raising its policy rate by a quarter-point to 3.25% in response to stronger-than-expected economic conditions. The increase in the cash rate marks the RBA's first rate increase since March 2008 and makes it the first central bank in a major developed economy to hike rates. Several analysts had expected the RBA to commence rate hikes a few months later. Governor Glenn Stevens wrote in a statement that the "basis for such a low interest rate setting has now passed" and that it was now prudent to "begin gradually lessening the stimulus provided by monetary policy."
- Americans may be wary of the eye-popping figures the federal government paid out in an effort to keep the recession from freefalling into a depression. But in the context of health reform, close to a trillion dollars may not be strong enough medicine over the next decade to extend coverage to the uninsured and make health insurance affordable for people who soon may be required to have it, some experts say. Karen Pollitz, project director of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, said she understands a feeling of "trillion-dollar fatigue" in the wake of the financial bail-out and stimulus package aimed at reviving a moribund economy. At the same time, the goals of health reform can't be met with $1 trillion, she said. "All the bills that are on the table are too small. Everybody's kind of in the ball park of a trillion dollars. That's what the
CNBC.com:
- Fertilizer maker Mosaic(MOS) posted a 91 percent drop in fiscal first-quarter profit on Monday.
ABCNews:
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Politico:
- The subject line of the e-mail said, “Heard anything about Rangel?” And the text of the message delivered: “Rumor is that he steps down as w&m chair tonight. It’s been floating around K St today.” That one came from a lobbyist at a prominent Washington firm — about a week before a Republican financial lobbyist called POLITICO to report that Charlie Rangel was “toast” as House Ways and Means Committee chairman, to be replaced at any minute by a more junior Democrat on the panel. A month later, Rangel still has his gavel, and Democratic insiders say that the lobbyist’s rumors — and a new Republican resolution aimed at ousting the chairman — will remain wishful thinking until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decides that it’s time for Rangel to lose his chairmanship. And that’s not going to happen, they say, unless the House ethics committee, which has been investigating Rangel for more than a year, comes down hard against him.
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The Business Insider:
- We've highlighted before how the United States Oil ETF (USO) can be hurt rolling its positions when oil is in "contango", ie. when future oil prices are higher than spot or near term prices. Unfortunately for USO, oil contango has been the norm lately despite its opposite, "backwardation", having generally been the case for the oil market in the past.
- Letterman Extortionist Lawyer Fights Back: Dave A “Master At Manipulating Audiences.”
Reuters:
- North Korea is in the final stages of restoring facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex,
North Korea had walked away from a deal to end its nuclear programme citing what it called U.S. intentions to attack it but its leader Kim Jong-il said this week his country was willing to return to dialogue.
- Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ) may get acquisitive again despite its recent absence from the technology sector's M&A scene, analysts said, and Brocade Communications Systems Inc (BRCD) may a prime target. Brocade is putting itself up for sale, and HP has looked at the company's assets but has not made a formal bid, sources told Reuters. Brocade and HP declined to comment.
- A tepid economic recovery should allow the U.S. Federal Reserve to keep interest rates at rock-bottom lows for a prolonged period, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said on Monday. Because the
Financial Times:
- Citigroup(C) is moving further away from its 11-year focus on marrying brokerage and banking by outsourcing some investment services offered to US branch customers to outside advisers and shifting up to 550 employees to new roles. The move in Citi’s wealth management business, which manages about $30bn on behalf of customers, underlines the desire by the troubled bank to focus on larger businesses and overhaul its strategy in the low-growth
- Nomura is poised almost to double its headcount in the US in an expansion that highlights the Japanese institution’s ambition to transform itself into one of the top five global investment banks. Nomura’s hiring spree will increase staff in the
The Independent:
- In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar. Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars. The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in
Globe and Mail:
- BCE Inc.'s Bell Canada and Telus Corp. will begin selling the iPhone next month, breaking the stranglehold on the iconic device that rival Rogers Communications Inc. has held for more than a year. The country's two largest incumbent telecom companies, under pressure to re-ignite growth as new wireless competitors begin operations this year, are banking on Apple Inc.'s ground-breaking smart phone to help them sign up bigger-spending customers and shift the balance of power in
Commercial Times:
- Acer Inc. expects is fourth-quarter consolidated revenue to rise 10% from the third quarter on a recovery in the economy and demand spurred by the Microsoft Corp. Windows 7 Operating System, citing company Chairman J.T. Wang. With rising demand for laptops, there are also component shortages in graphic card chips, flat panels and hard drives, citing Wang.
The Nation:
- Negotiations to finalize an ambitious international climate-change deal have not made any progress at the midway point of a two-week meeting in Bangkok. "Two months to
Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Citigroup:
- Rated (TIF) Buy, target $50.
- Rated (RIMM) Underperform, target $60.
Wells
- Rated (MDRX) Outperform.
- Upgraded (DFT) to Outperform.
Night Trading
Asian Indices are unch. to +1.50% on average.
S&P 500 futures +.02%.
NASDAQ 100 futures +.18%.
Morning Preview
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Rasmussen Reports Polling
Earnings of Note
Company/EPS Estimate
- (PBG)/1.07
- (CHTT)/1.21
- (YUM)/.58
Economic Releases
- None of note
Upcoming Splits
- None of note
Other Potential Market Movers
- The Fed’s Hoenig speaking, Treasury’s 3-year Note Auction, weekly retail sales reports, William Blair Emerging Growth Stock Conference, ABC Consumer Confidence reading, (RHT) analyst meeting, (VQ) analyst day, (IRM) investor day, JMP Securities Healthcare Conference, (OKE) investor conference, Deutsche Bank Energy Conference and the Johnson Rice Energy Conference could also impact trading today.
Evening Review
BNO Breaking Global News of Note
Yahoo Most Popular Biz Stories
Bloomberg:
- Wells Fargo & Co.(WFC), JPMorgan Chase & Co.(JPM) and the biggest U.S. banks were raised to “attractive” from “neutral” by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which said share prices don’t reflect prospects for earnings growth. “We believe this difference in earnings power hasn’t been fully reflected in share prices,” New York-based analysts led by Richard Ramsden wrote in a note to clients today. “We estimate that normalized earnings for large banks are 39 percent higher than in 2007 despite the 36 percent decline in share prices.”
- A measure of U.S. job prospects rose in September for the first time in more than a year, a sign job losses may not keep accelerating, a private survey showed. The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index rose 0.3 to 88.5, the first increase since January 2008 and the highest level since April, the New York-based private research group said today. The reading was down 16 percent from a year ago.
- U.S. home-loan bonds without government backing ended a third-quarter rally with a week of gains, leaving some securities at prices almost double their lows. Typical prices for the most-senior prime-jumbo securities rose 2 cents on the dollar last week to 84 cents, according to Barclays Capital data. Similar bonds backed by Alt-A loans with a few years of fixed rates increased 2 cents to 60 cents. The jumbo bonds are up from about 75 cents three months earlier, while the Alt-A bonds have climbed from 47 cents.
- U.S. service industries expanded in September for the first time in a year as the emerging recovery spread from housing and factories to the broader economy. The Institute for Supply Management’s index of non- manufacturing businesses, which make up almost 90 percent of the economy, rose to 50.9, higher than forecast, from 48.4 in August, according to the Tempe, Arizona-based group. Fifty is the dividing line between expansion and contraction. “We should continue to see broad improvement in the economy,” said Ellen Zentner, a senior economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. Even so, she said, “hurdles remain within the side of the economy that creates jobs. It’s going to be growth, but weak growth.” The ISM non-manufacturing gauge of new orders rose to the highest since October 2007, and the index of employment gained to 44.3, the highest since August 2008 and signaling job cuts were decelerating.
- Home prices in the Hamptons, the oceanside summer getaway for celebrities and Wall Street financiers, climbed 12 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier on an increase in high-end sales. The median price rose to $840,000 across the 15 villages and hamlets that make up the East End of Long Island, according to a report by the Corcoran Group, a New York-based property broker with offices in the Hamptons. The median for luxury homes, defined as the top 10 percent by price, jumped 23 percent to $5.9 million. “We usually see Wall Street bonus money stepping up to the plate in the second quarter,” said Rick Hoffman, a Bridgehampton-based senior vice president for Corcoran. “Some of it may have stepped up in the third quarter as people realized this is a buying opportunity.”
- Legislation aimed at tightening oversight of the $592 trillion derivatives market would give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission new authority to police over-the-counter commodity swaps as well as derivatives traded on foreign exchanges. The commission would get the power sought by Chairman Gary Gensler to regulate bilateral swaps in commodities such as wheat and natural gas, and may impose position limits on speculation that takes place outside of regulated exchanges, according to a 187-page draft measure released Oct. 2 by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank.
- The cost to protect against defaults on U.S. corporate bonds fell for the second day as a report showed the nation’s service industries expanded last month for the first time in a year. Credit default swaps on the Markit CDX North America Investment- Grade Index Series 13, which is linked to 125 companies with investment-grade credit ratings and used to speculate on creditworthiness, fell 4.5 basis points to 102 basis points as of 11:57 a.m. in New York, according to broker Phoenix Partners Group. The Markit CDX index has declined 13 basis points after climbing to an almost one-month high of 115 basis points in intraday trading on Oct. 2, Phoenix prices show.
- Investors are snapping up commodities at the fastest pace in 18 months just as stockpiles of raw materials rise and shipping rates plunge, signaling that prices may be poised to fall. Open interest, or contracts yet to be closed, liquidated or delivered, rose 6.6 percent in the third quarter for the 20 most-traded U.S. commodities, exchange data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s the steepest gain since the first three months of 2008, just before the credit-market freeze sent prices plunging from records. While the U.S. economy shows signs of bottoming after the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, supplies of raw materials are growing faster than demand. Oil inventories rose 15 percent in the past year, Energy Department figures show. The Baltic Dry Index, a barometer for raw-material demand, slid 41 percent in the third quarter. “We’ve been moving out of our commodity holdings and into cash,” said Peter Sorrentino, who helps manage $13.8 billion at Huntington Asset Advisors in Cincinnati and correctly predicted last year’s price declines. “People got so excited about growth coming back, but now no one is quite sure what the traction of the recovery will be.” A “protracted global slowdown” may mean the 90 percent surge in copper prices and oil’s 57 percent gain in 2009 was a “short boom,” the International Monetary Fund said on Oct. 1. Philip Verleger, the University of Calgary economist who correctly forecast in 2007 that oil would reach $100 a barrel, now says crude will fall below $40 by year-end. Copper may average 22 percent less this quarter than last, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts, after monthly shipments of refined copper into China, the world’s biggest user, tumbled 25 percent in August. Investors poured $10.2 billion into commodity funds this year, a six-fold increase from a year earlier, according to researcher EPFR Global in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Investors turned the most bearish on the dollar in 18 months in September as signs of a worldwide economic recovery reduced demand for the currency as a refuge, according to 583 respondents in the Bloomberg Professional Global Confidence Index. Forward rates indicate the dollar will be little changed in six months. Warehouses monitored by the London Metal Exchange held 34 percent more copper on Oct. 2 than on July 14, when supplies reached a 2009 low. Inventories rose to 346,050 tons on Oct. 1, the highest since May 20. Stockpiles measured by the Shanghai Futures Exchange reached a five-year high last month. In its semi-annual World Economic Outlook, the IMF said commodities gains similar to those of late 2007 and the first half of 2008 may be delayed for years.
- French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Europe’s economic recovery doesn’t justify further gains in the euro, underlining the Group of Seven’s call for China to shoulder more of the burden of the dollar’s slide. “The European economy is not doing badly but it’s not doing so well that its currency can be the ultimate recourse,” Lagarde said today in an interview in Istanbul, where the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are taking place. “We need a rebalancing so that one currency doesn’t take the flak for the others.”
Wall Street Journal:
- Data-storage and networking company Brocade Communications Systems Inc.(BRCD) has quietly put itself up for sale, people familiar with the matter said. Hewlett-Packard Co.(HPQ) is among those kicking the tires, these people said. Other companies including Oracle Corp.(ORCL) may also be examining a purchase, said one of the people familiar with the matter.
- The European Commission will propose raising a minimum tax on energy products such as gasoline based on their carbon-dioxide emissions, as part of a broader plan to reform energy taxation in the 27-nation bloc, a draft document obtained by Dow Jones Newswires showed Monday.
- News Corp. (NWS/A) Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said Monday that traditional newspaper and television advertising markets are picking up, echoing growing sentiment that the media industry may rebound from steep losses.
CNBC:
- Obama Advisors Mull Tax Cuts, Other Job-Creation Measures.
NY Times:
- China plans to spend billions of dollars in the next few years to develop media and entertainment companies that it hopes can compete with global giants like the News Corporation(NWS/A) and Time Warner(TWX), and will in the process loosen some of its tight control of these industries. An ambitious plan, set forth in guidelines last week by China’s State Council, envisions the creation of entertainment, news and culture companies with a market orientation and with less government backing. China, in short, would like to consolidate its industry into companies resembling Bloomberg, Time Warner and Viacom, analysts say. “There appears to be a feeling at the highest levels of government that they need a media machine commensurate to the rising status and power of China,” says Jim Laurie, a former ABC News correspondent who teaches at Hong Kong University and recently met with Chinese state broadcasting executives. Beijing hopes the moves will even improve the nation’s image overseas — part of a longstanding effort to use “soft power,” rather than military might to win friends abroad. Along the way, Beijing will allow private and foreign companies to invest in everything from music, film and television to theater, dance and opera productions — though largely through state-owned companies.
- The Managed Funds Association, the hedge fund industry’s main lobbying group, has selected Darcy Bradbury, a former assistant Treasury secretary and a senior vice president for the D.E. Shaw group, to serve as its chairwoman. The move comes as hedge funds are stepping up their efforts to head off new regulation from Washington.
Washington Post:
- The nation's governors are emerging as a formidable lobbying force as health-care reform moves through Congress and states overburdened by the recession brace for the daunting prospect of providing coverage to millions of low-income residents. The legislation the Senate Finance Committee is expected to approve this week calls for the biggest expansion of Medicaid since its creation in 1965. Under the Senate bill and a similar House proposal, a patchwork state-federal insurance program targeted mainly at children, pregnant women and disabled people would effectively become a Medicare for the poor, a health-care safety net for all people with an annual income below $14,404. Whether Medicaid can absorb a huge influx of beneficiaries is a matter of grave concern to many governors, who have cut low-income health benefits -- along with school funding, prison construction, state jobs and just about everything else -- to cope with the most severe economic downturn in decades. "I can't think of a worse time for this bill to be coming," said Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D), a member of the National Governors Association's health-care task force. "I'd love to see it happen. But nobody's going to put their state into bankruptcy or their education system in the tank for it."
The Hill:
- Venture capitalists breathed a collective sigh of relief Thursday when a proposal from the House Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee did not seek to treat them like private equity firms or hedge funds. Venture capital investors had been lobbying against such a measure, saying that being required to register with the Securitiesand Exchange Commission like hedge funds and other private pools of money was unnecessary and expensive.
The Business Insider:
- The GM of Microsoft's (MSFT) in-game advertising unit Massive says business is booming. In a post to the company blog, JJ Richards writes that the ads-in-videogames market should reach $1 billion by 2014 and that Massive has already surpassed its quarterly sales targets.
LA Times:
- About 1 in 100 of America's 8-year-olds have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers, who will be releasing details of their study later this year. That's a 50% increase from two years ago, when the government estimated the rate at 1 in 150. Dr. Ileana Arias, deputy director of the CDC, said the agency considers the disorder "a significant issue that needs immediate attention." But the higher rate might not mean more kids have autism spectrum disorder, scientists cautioned. "It is not clear more children are affected rather than just changes in our ability to detect," said Dr. Tom Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
USAToday:
- The president of Somalia on Sunday denounced the recruiting of young men from Minnesota's huge Somali community for terrorist activity in his war-ravaged homeland, and said he plans to work with the U.S. government to bring those still alive back home. President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed spoke with The Associated Press while visiting the Minneapolis area, where authorities believe as many as 20 young Somali men — possibly recruited by a vision of jihad to fight — returned to the impoverished nation over the last two years. At least three have died in Somalia, including one who authorities believe was the first American suicide bomber. Three others have pleaded guilty in the U.S. to terror-related charges.
- Moviegoers in about a dozen cities including San Francisco, Tucson, Las Vegas and Albuquerque will soon have an alternative to Imax (IMAX) when they want to see supersized flicks. Cinemark (CNK), the third-largest theater chain, has caught the attention of the movie industry — and investors — with a plan for its own big-screen system, called Cinemark XD, in time for the Christmas movie season.
Reuters:
- U.S. President Barack Obama has no plans now for a second economic stimulus package, spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday. "No, I think we've said all along that there were no plans for that," Gibbs said at a daily news briefing.
Financial Times:
- Asian central banks and regulators are moving to curb rising property prices, in a sign they have adopted a more aggressive stance on pre-empting asset bubbles. Singapore and South Korea in the past month have tightened rules governing loans to the property sector and Indian media report that the country may soon follow suit. China and Hong Kong have also warned banks to avoid imprudent lending to homebuyers. “This is a positive, albeit tentative, sign that Asia has learnt from the experience of the west,” said Rob Subbaraman, chief Asia economist at Nomura. “It is prudent to lean against the formation of asset price bubbles.”
Telegraph:
- According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week. The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.
DigiTimes:
- Demand for LED chips is set to outpace supply growth in 2010 due to the increasing penetration rates of LED TVs and LED notebooks, according to industry sources in Taiwan. Demand for LED chips from the LED TV segment is likely to top 1.2 billion units a month based on a projection of global shipments of 15 million LED TVs, or 10% of the global shipments of flat-panel TVs in 2009, the sources estimated. Some branded TV vendors have even predicted that global shipments of LED TVs in 2009 may reach as high as 30 million units, further pushing up demand for LED chips, the sources added. Meanwhile, the penetration rate of LED notebooks in the entire notebook segment is also expected to climb to 80% in 2010, from 50% in 2009, said the sources. The shortage of LED chips is unlikely to wane until 2012.
Style Underperformer:
Large-Cap Growth (+.49%)
Sector Underperformers:
Education (-.43%), Software (-.27%) and Medical Equipment (+.11%)
Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume:
SGEN, MLHR and AMAG
Stocks With Unusual Put Option Activity:
1) NXY 2) AMX 3) ACH 4) CBS 5) CLX