Stocks close slightly higher...

But not much gains to report.  The most significant moves were in Gold and Silver, both of which broke down thru key support levels.  Gold closed down $96.30 to 1645 and silver closed down 5.73 to 30.85.

Closing numbers:

Dow +37 to 10771
Nas +27 to 2483
S&P +6 to 1136

Hope the weekend is non-eventful.  Have a nice one!!!

Have you been to your bank branch lately???

Just got back from mine.  Every employee in the bank told me hello and the teller asked me about 20 questions trying to start up a conversation.  The sales pitch was to get me to refinance my mortgage.  30 year fixed at 3.75%

I just thought it was funny how they all attacked me as soon as I walked in the door.  Must be really slow over there.

At 2:30 pm...

Stocks mixed as it is clear that traders are reluctant to buy stocks heading into the weekend.

Dow -12
Nas +16
S&P +3 to 1132

Gold, Silver and Oils still the weakest groups.

Best Stocks on the board???  I like:

Perrigo (PRGO) currently at 94.83 down from a high of 99.54
Whole Foods (WFM) currently at 67.80 down from 73.33
Deckers (DECK) at 100 down from 105.83

Amazon announces special event...

Amazon (AMZN) announces an invitation-only special event in NYC on September 28. The obvious answer: a tablet announcement.   All I can say is it better be nicer than the Kindle.

Amazon is now up 0.16 to 223.40.

It had been down over $2.00 earlier.

Earlier, Nike reported nice earnings...

Nike Inc. (NKE). The athletic shoe and clothing maker staved off margin pressure in the first quarter with strong revenue and price increases, and said it was confident about its position among peers as it heads toward the winter holidays. First-quarter net income rose 15 percent to $645 million, or $1.36 a share, from $559 million in the year ago period. 


Nike is up 5.44 to 89.62 today.

At 1:30 pm....

Stocks are still mixed but the averages are moving higher.  No telling where we end up today.

Dow +17
Nas +18
S&P +4 to 1134

Oils are selling off.  Gold and Silver are basically in a free fall.

Who cares???

The NBA indefinitely postpones training camp and 43 preseason games, as the chance for a full-fledged regular season work stoppage (no ticket sales, less merchandising and limited advertising) increases. For firms with some revenue tied to the NBA - including MSG, DIS, CBS, CMCSA, NWSA, NKE, and BUD - is a stoppage already baked into their stock prices?

The NBA doesn't get interesting until the playoffs anyway.

Netflix losing popularity??

A new poll from The Street finds 42% of Netflix (NFLX) subscribers planning to fully cancel their subscriptions following the rise of Qwikster. A number of readers also feel the company is now "out of touch" with its customers, and think the placing of Netflix's DVD and streaming queues on separate sites will hurt the user experience.

I was actually looking on the streaming service last night for a movie to watch.  There wasn't anything that caught my eye.  The loss of STARZ is going to kill them.

Let's look at Silver....

Let's check out the relationship between the Silver Trust ETF (SLV) and the Proshares Ultra Short Silver ETF (ZSL).

If you look at the weekly charts you can see that ZSL has an all-time high of $242 set on the week of February 5, 2010.

At that same time the Silver Trust (SLV) was at a low of 14.27

Currently:

SLV is at 31.21

ZSL is at 18.05

Now I'm no mathematician, but something funny is going on here.  So basically a 118% rise in the SLV leads to a 92.5% drop in ZSL.  So if SLV drops back to 14.27 will the ZSL go back up to $242???

That my friends shows you how messed up these ETFs are!!!!

I showed you the SLV chart earlier.  Here is the ZSL chart:

Is Goodrich an easy 5 points???

Yesterday we told you that Goodrich is going to be purchased by United Tecnologies for $127.50 per share CASH.  The word CASH is key, meaning that is the price you will get paid if you own the stock on the date that the buyout actually occurs. 

The stock is trading at 121.93 as I write this.  So, the questions are:

1. Will the buyout definitely happen???  Answer: In the agreement, United Technologies agreed to pay a breakup fee of $500 Million if they back away from the deal.

2. How long would I need to hold the stock before the buyout occurs???  Answer:  It was announced that the deal should be finalized in the 2nd quarter next year...so basically 9 months.

Is it worth it???  A 4.5 % gain in 9 months???

Wanna see another ugly chart???

Check out Ancestry.com (ACOM).  I had been waiting for this one to come back to reality.  The stock went public back in November 2009 at $15.  It ran up to $45.79 earlier this year, but looks like it is heading back to at least where it came out.

Here is the weekly chart:

Might be a good time to short First Solar...

As I pointed out a few weeks ago, Solar stocks have been crashing.  The one remaining Solar stock with a long way to drop is First Solar (FSLR).  As you can see from the monthly chart going back to 2007, FSLR has no support level from here...so no telling how low it goes.

This morning, the stock fell to 61.55.  As I write this, the stock has rebounded to where it is actually up 1.99 to 68.85.  Could be an easy 7 points if it goes back and hits new lows.

Upgrades and Downgrades...

These are some of this Friday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen having an impact from Wall Street research calls.


Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) Started as Outperform at William Blair.
Annaly Capital Management, Inc. (NYSE: NLY) Started as Neutral at UBS.
Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE: ADM) Started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Corning, Inc. (NYSE: GLW) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.
McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD) Raised to Strong Buy at S&P Equity Research.
Pandora Media, Inc. (NYSE: P) Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Patterson-UTI Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: PTEN) named value stock of the day at Zacks.
Pepsico, Inc. (NYSE: PEP) Cut to Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.
Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ: RMBS) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan.
Under Armour, Inc. (NYSE: UA) Started as Buy at Argus.
V.F. Corporation (NYSE: VFC) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.
VimpelCom Ltd. (NYSE: VIP) Started as Sell at Goldman Sachs.
Xilinx Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) Started as Outperform at William Blair.
Youku.com Inc (NYSE: YOKU) Raised to Positive at Susquehanna.

Gold and Silver breaking down...

Thought I'd show you the Gold and Silver ETF charts. 

GLD has broken hard thru the critical support level of 170.

SLV had support at around 32.50.  It is breaking thru that level this morning.

Alexion may receive approval for Soliris...

Shares of Alexion Pharamaceuticals (ALXN) register a gain after the firm says it has received a positive opinion in Europe for Soliris with a final decision from the European Commission expected in about two months. Soliris is a first treatment for patients with a rare life-threatening blood disorder.

ALXN is up 2.14 to 65.52

Alexion is the Number 1 rated stock in Investor's Business Daily's Top 50.

What does HP have in common with eBay???

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ -5.3%) sinks to a six-year low $21.60/share, losing all the pop from the Apotheker firing. Investors apparently are not thrilled that H-P looks to have decided to do pretty much what Apotheker was going to do anyway. On Meg Whitman, the concern is that she "faces a learning curve" in the enterprise business after 30 years in the consumer space.

I don't get this hire at all. 

At 10:30 am....

Stocks are mixed as traders (both longs and shorts) try to decide whether to hold their positions over the weekend.  Art Cashin (the UBS market strategist - with 40+ years on the exchange) think this market is setting up for a crash on Monday.  He then thinks that will be quickly followed by a MASSIVE rally.  Now, he has been looking for capitulation for about 10 years.

Right now:

Dow -17
Nas +11
S&P +1 to 1130

If you are in the crash camp, it might be wise to put some protection on your accounts over the weekend. 

JP Morgan trying to prop up Pandora....

Shares of Pandora (P) gets an upgrade from Morgan Stanley to Overweight from Equalweight on valuation. Morgan put a $16 price target on the shares


Oh....by the way: JP Morgan was one of the lead underwriters of the Pandora IPO on June 15th, which was priced at....you guessed it...$16 a share.

Pandora is up 0.70 to 10.76 today.

Here's a surprising downgrade...

Moody's again downgrades the Greek banks, saying it "believes that private creditors may incur substantial economic losses on their Greek government bond holdings beyond the terms of the current debt exchange."

I think I could have made this downgrade.

Gold breaks down...

Gold legs down below $1,700/oz. for the first time since early August. A technician might look at a chart and say there is no support for the metal until $1,500. It was from this level on July 1 that gold took off in a straight line to $1,900 over the next 6 weeks.


The Gold ETF (GLD) is opening down 5.05 to 164


That is a huge breakdown on the charts. 

Good Morning. Futures down but off their lows...

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower open as growing concerns about the impact on the global economy from a possible Greek default eclipsed hopes for concrete action from G20 finance chiefs. European shares fell, extending the previous session's steep losses, on fresh concerns that European banks would take further write-downs on their Greek debt exposure.

Asian markets were largely down on fears of renewed recession in the developed world, which left investors largely unimpressed. Brent crude oil turned lower, falling more than $1 a barrel and extending the previous session's slide on concern about the outlook for the economy and oil demand.

Gold hit a one-month low and was set to post its sharpest weekly drop since May, hit by a sell-off in the commodities.