Thursday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:
- A bridge in Minneapolis collapsed today, causing vehicles to fall into the Mississippi River. At least three people were killed.
- China is failing to ease restrictions of human rights activists and is intensifying its crackdown on the media a year before the Beijing Olympics, Human Rights Watch said.
- Mattel’s(MAT) Fisher-Price division is recalling 967,000 Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer and other children’s toys manufactured in China that may contain paint with “excessive levels” of lead.
- Toyota Motor and Honda Motor led Asian carmakers to a record share of US auto sales in July sending their US rivals below the 50% threshold for the first time.
- BMW AG, the world’s largest luxury-car maker, gained US sales in July on young buyers’ demand for the 3-Series sport sedan while other European brands suffered declines.
- Turmoil in global financial markets, while posing a risk to economic growth, isn’t “unsettling,” said John Lipsky, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
- Families who lost relatives at the World Trade Center applied for a permit to gather at the site for the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, opposing city and state officials who have moved the ceremony to a nearby lower Manhattan park.
- Shares of Macquarie Bank Ltd. and Babcock & Brown Ltd., Australia’s biggest investment banks, rebounded from yesterday’s slump after the companies said earnings were unaffected by the rout in global credit markets.

Wall Street Journal:
- News Corp.(NWS/A) Chairman Rupert Murdoch, having finalized a deal to buy The Wall Street Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones(DJ), is expected to turn his attention to figuring out his strategy for each of its businesses.

MarketWatch.com:
- Concern about American International Group’s exposure to subprime mortgages is overdone, analysts said on Wednesday.
- Highland Capital Management LP has generated strong performance this year betting against subprime mortgages and is well positioned to benefit from recent turmoil in credit markets, according to a letter the $40 billion investment firm sent to clients on Wednesday.

CNN.com:
- Why stocks can shake off mortgage meltdown. Turmoil in the credit markets is sparking a global sell off, but are investors overreacting?

Financial Times:
- Walt Disney made its first acquisition in social networking on Wednesday, buying Club Penguin, which operates an online virtual world for children, for a fee that could eventually rise to $700m.
- Rupert Murdoch is likely to take control of Dow Jones(DJ) within three months, staff learnt on Wednesday, as the News Corp.(NWS/A) chairman moved to lock in the support of other shareholders after winning the backing of enough members of the Bancroft family.

London-based Times:
- UK manufacturing activity increased in July despite a strong pound, soaring oil prices and higher interest rates, citing the CIPS/NTC purchasing managers’ index.

Nikkei:
- Japan’s Cabinet Office will revise the government’s projections for both real and nominal gross domestic product growth for fiscal 2007 to 2.1%. That would represent a .1 percentage point increase in real growth.

Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Citigroup:
- Reiterated Buy on (SPW), target $105.
- Reiterated Sell on (Q), target $7.
- Reiterated Buy on (CBI), target $50.

Night Trading
Asian Indices are unch. to +1.50% on average.
S&P 500 futures +.07%.
NASDAQ 100 futures +.01%.

Morning Preview
US AM Market Call
NASDAQ 100 Pre-Market Indicator/Heat Map
Pre-market Commentary
Pre-market Stock Quote/Chart
Before the Bell CNBC Video(bottom right)
Global Commentary
WSJ Intl Markets Performance
Commodity Movers
Top 25 Stories
Top 20 Business Stories
Today in IBD
In Play
Bond Ticker
Economic Preview/Calendar
Daily Stock Events
Macro Calls
Upgrades/Downgrades
Rasmussen Business/Economy Polling
CNBC Guest Schedule

Earnings of Note
Company/EPS Estimate
- (ATVI)/.06
- (ATK)/1.36
- (AMT)/.05
- (B)/.48
- (BCO)/.58
- (CKP)/.26
- (CHK)/.65
- (CQB)/.49
- (CLX)/1.10
- (CVS)/.46
- (EK)/.09
- (EXPE)/.33
- (FAF)/.93
- (GMCR)/.14
- (IN)/.06
- (IP)/.54
- (KBR)/.29
- (LEA)/.91
- (MGM)/.58
- (NEM)/.22
- (NYX)/.63
- (PWR)/.17
- (RDC)/1.04
- (HOT)/.63
- (TBL)/-.31
- (VSE)/.14
- (VIA/B)/.49
- (WMB)/.36

Upcoming Splits
- None of note

Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
- Initial Jobless Claims for last week are estimated to rise to 310K versus 301K the prior week.
- Continuing Claims are estimated to rise to 2548K versus 2545K prior.

10:00 am EST
- Factory Orders for June are estimated to rise 1.0% versus a -.5% decline in May.

Other Potential Market Movers
- The ECB Policy Meeting, weekly EIA natural gas inventory report, CIBC Communications Tech Conference and ThinkEquity ThinkBIG Conference could also impact trading today.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are higher, boosted by mining and financial 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.