S&P views the Greek government deficit reduction package as appropriate to meet its 2010 budget targets given the deterioration of its growth prospects in the year.

S&P affirmed the BBB+/A-2 sovereign credit ratings on Greece and is removing those ratings from CreditWatch Negative.  This outlook reflects the view of the Greek government’s ability to sustain reform momentum in the medium term.

National Bank of Greece SA (NYSE: NBG) is now up 2.8% a $4.44 and we have already seen 3.9 million shares trade in less than two hours since the market opened.

JON C. OGG

The company is a Korea-based designer and manufacturer of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products for high-volume consumer applications, and the company said it has one of the broadest and deepest analog and mixed-signal semiconductor technology platforms in the industry.  It claims about 3,600 novel registered and pending patents.  It also claims over 2,300 distinct products and over 185 customers for 2009, and those key clients were noted as LG Display, Sharp and Samsung.

The company has made changes to be more profitable and lean.  It has closed its imaging solutions business as losses there were $91.5 million and $51.7 million in 2008 and 2007, respectively.  The company also cut its debt from $845 million before a reorganization to $61.8 million as the end of 2009.

For 2009 on an a combined pro forma basis, MagnaChip reported net sales of $560.1 million, income from continuing operations of $66.0 million, Adjusted EBITDA of $98.7 million and Adjusted Net Income of $53.0 million.

JON C. OGG

National Bank of Greece SA (NBG) shares are down 1.4% today at $4.10 and we have seen 3.15 million shares trade hands after Noon EST.  The average volume is now 2.75 million shares, but that average is far higher than it used to be.  Just last November a very active trading day was about 500,000 shares.

MarketWatch was talking this morning about overseas opportunities in the Greek crisis by looking at the cash-rich companies… they even noted that NBG “…is a top pick at Piraeus because of its geographical diversification and balance sheet strength” and noted other local companies as well.

The problem is not just today.  The new socialist government  has been forced to break its election promises.  The new more conservative promises can be made today, but what assurances are there that the government won’t buckle at home under pressure.  It is also going to take a miracle to get the Greek population to play by normal rules such as paying the full list prices on the tax records for items.  And the unemployment situation is front and center at a time when tourism money is not flowing in as much as it used to.  There have been strikes over the cuts in benefits, and mark these words: those strikes are not the last you have seen.

Investors learned a lesson by betting on bailouts prematurely here in the U.S.  Many banks here were allowed to disappear entirely.  Greece can get a bailout today or next month.  But the worries go far into 2011 and 2012 and beyond.

The traders are the ones that nibble into the ADRs for now.  Investors probably do not mind paying more later, but they don’t want to walk in one day and find that their ADR is worth $1 or worse.

JON C. OGG

We have given some wide expectations, issues to watch, and background data on each stock for this coming week.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B, BRK-B) released the Annual Letter to shareholders from Warren Buffett this weekend.  Buffett was far more confident than last year’s dreadful letter and with reason, most of his positions are now well above water.  We have noticed how short sellers have attacked the Buffett stocks in the most recent data from last week.  Buffett will be on a 3-hour breakfast chat with Becky Quick on CNBC Monday morning, so Buffett headlines are likely to rule for at least all of Monday.

The Chile Fund Inc. (NYSE: CH) as a closed-end fund and the iShares MSCI Chile Investable Mkt Idx (NYSE: ECH) as an ETF are going to be important to watch.  This is on the heels of an 8.8-magnitude earthquake that severely damaged Chile over the weekend.  We do not have a count on deaths and injuries yet, but this may interrupt the country’s GDP growth significantly in 2010.  It is always to cover issues from these in a few sentences when you know how much pain and suffering is happening.

CombinatoRx, Incorporated (NASDAQ: CRXX) fell on Friday ahead of the Monday March 1 FDA PDUFA goal date for the review of its Exalgo™ extended-release opioid painkiller tablet new drug application.  This NDA application date was moved from Monday, February 22, 2010 to Monday, March 1, 2010 due to federal government closings due to snow.  This can be a make or break event due to its micro-cap status. Shares closed down 8% at $1.12 on more than 200% normal trading volume on Friday.  The 52-week trading range is $0.41 to $2.60.

Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) is scheduled to report earnings Wednesday morning.  Thomson Reuters has estimates of $0.71 EPS on about $18.5 billion.  We remain focused on valuation here at more than 20-times 2010 earnings estimates and at $60.97 it is within 1% of its 52-week high of $61.52.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. (NYSE: RDY) was given a very positive article in Barron’s over the weekend.  The Indian generic drug company closed at $24.61 in its USD ADR and two analysts predicted it could run up to $29.63 and to $30.82 as its sales are expected to double to $3 billion in 2013. It was noted that GlaxoSmithkline (NYSE: GSK) was interested in taking a stake.  Its 52-week range is $7.27 to $27.33.  If the markets are flat or solid, it seems that Dr. Reddy’s may have up to a 2% or so Barron’s-pop.

Millipore Inc. (NYSE: MIL) has yet to show that a bid is on the table above that it is ‘exploring strategic alternatives’ after  last week’s M&A leak.  The $6 billion said to be on the table from Thermo Fisher (NYSE: TMO) is said to include debt and there were late-week rumors that 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) may join the fray here to add Millipore in with its Cuno operations.  If a deal is going to come, we’d look for more news on Monday or Tuesday rather than this story just dying down.

National Bank of Greece SA (NYSE: NBG) has become the go-to stock proxy for a vote on the future of Greece in its steady troubles with the Euro.  There are mixed reports over Greece’s bailout. The WSJ has said over the weekend that a package is coming by Friday, yet Germany’s Merkel has said the IMF is the only agency which can save Greece, according to a Handelsblatt report.  The National Bank of Greece SA (NYSE: NBG) will be THE proxy to watch.  As recently as November the Greek ADR would trade a mere half million shares per day.  Now that number is closer to 2 million shares per day.  This is the proxy to watch Monday for the Greece bailout situation.

Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) was given the ultimate pan this week by Wall Street and Barron’s is only adding fuel to the fire here.  Barron’s argues its phones are great and that no one is buying the things as they opt for just about every other maker.  And its expanded carrier plan still is weak, as are the promotions and the advertisements.  I noted how options traders were betting on even more and more downside over at OptionsZone.com this last week despite the selling which had already been seen.  Barron’s notes the hope of a takeover, but also noted the chances being a long shot from Dell or H-P… Now Barron’s gave this the ultimate snub: “without some surprise news, Palm could drift back down toward $3….”  Palm started last week above $9.00 then down close to $8.00 before dropping the ball about its warning and shares went down to $6.53. With a 6.7% drop to $6.09 Friday, Barron’s is calling for another 50% drop.

SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) broke under $1.00 briefly Friday and shares closed down 4.6% at $1.02 on Friday.  After the company posted positive earnings and then traded as high as $1.18, we promised late on Friday to give an updated outlook.  I have been behind the company for a rather long time… down at $0.15 and under, and I had noted to buy the shares, take physical delivery of the shares, and stick them in a drawer.  It is time to lighten up here.  The stock can rise, but the implied dilution from Malone and Liberty here is just too great.  The Pandora competition coming in March and even the Howard Stern contract game are two sideshows in our analysis.  Its 3.6 billion shares already are one thing, but if Liberty were to covert its convertible preferred stake we’d be somewhere around 6.45 billion shares trying to try to capture some of the implied value at more than $2.5 billion today.  The ride might not be over, but smart money would take at least half of the position off the table now.

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) and Ford Motor (NYSE: F) are on deck for February auto sales on Tuesday.  There is now way that weather in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast will not have played a role in hurting the sales comparisons to 2009, but we are going to get to see just how poorly Toyota’s recalls are hurting Toyota and just how much Ford has been able to capitalize in market share.  Edmunds noted the lowest Toyota market share in years, yet the stock has not busted really under $71 and traders have supported it.  Dennis Gartman on CNBC Friday just said he prefers to be long Ford.

You are invited to join our free daily email distribution list to hear about top analyst upgrades and downgrades, IPOs and secondary offerings, ongoing day trader and options trader alerts, stock and market rumors, Buffett and guru investor news, M&A and more.

JON C. OGG

Turkey is still not the easiest country to invest in from ETFs, closed-end funds, and ADRs.  But there is one of each that investors here in the U.S. can use.  There is the iShares MSCI Turkey Invest Market Index (NYSE: TUR), the Turkish Investment Fund Inc. (NYSE: TKF), and Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS (NYSE: TKC).

S&P has noted several positive issues in Turkey, and surprisingly talked up its banking system.  Noted was that Turkey has steadily reduced its debt burden in the last decade.

• Long-term foreign and local currency ratings to ‘BB’ and ‘BB+’;outlook is positive,  possibly generating  an additional upgrade in the next 12 to 24 months.
• The ‘B’ short-term ratings were affirmed and the outlook is positive.
• The Transfer and Convertibility Assessment was raised to ‘BBB-’ from ‘BB+’.
• The ‘trAA+/trA-1′ Turkish national scale credit ratings were affirmed.

It is hard to not see a note about the “success of Turkey’s regulatory institutions in preserving the solidity of the financial sector…” S&P also called Turkey’s banking system one of the strongest and least-leveraged in Eastern Europe with a well capitalized banking system and a low leverage of the household sector.

iShares MSCI Turkey Invest Mkt Index (NYSE: TUR) is up 0.65% at $54.27 on almost 33,000 shares.  The 52-week range is $19.05 to $59.19 and average volume is 250,000.  Listed assets are $433 million.

Turkish Investment Fund Inc. (NYSE: TKF) is up 0.7% at $13.10 on only about 6,300 shares.   The 52-week range is $4.05 to $14.48 and average volume is 40,000 shares.  Listed market cap today is $98 million.

Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS (NYSE: TKC) is the longest standing ADR in the region, operating a large cellular network in the country.  The ADR is up 0.8% at $16.49 on 241,000 shares.  The 52-week range is $10.90 to $19.99 and average volume is almost 700,000 shares.  The market cap today is listed as roughly $14.5 billion.

JON C. OGG
FEBRUARY 19, 2010

A group called RPX Corp., which has Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and more than 30 other tech giants as members, is one that cannot be ruled out.  This company acts as a go-between or virtual intermediary with its RPX Defensive Patent Aggregation service geared to lower the cost and the risk of patent assertion and litigation by non-practicing entities.

Another likely candidate is LM Ericsson Telephone Co. (NASDAQ: ERIC).  The wireless network sale of Nortel had been contested, and Nortel ended up licensing some long-term evolution patents and rights to Ericsson but the ownership stayed under Nortel.

QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) was another name thrown to us last year as a potential bidder, although that may be more to hedge its CDMA and related standards if the long term evolution patents are ultimately used for future wireless standards.  If you have followed patent law for the last decade you have seen major infighting between QUALCOMM and other tech and communications giants.

Another name which has been thrown out is the NTP, Inc. company, which you will remember was the company that scored an empire-building sum from R-I-M.  The status of this entity and its direction is unfortunately something that has gone off our radar.

This week, Dow Jones noted that Mosaid Technologies Inc. and Wi-LAN Inc., both Canadian-based patent license companies, are among the interested parties.

If you go back to the Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) merger, despite the notion that Lucent was heading into its own death-spiral, there were many concerns about its huge patent portfolio locked up inside of Bell Labs.  That patent portfolio was effectively allowing a French acquirer to secure thousands of patents on multiple aspects of intellectual property in the world of communications.  At the time of that merger, some felt that the patent portfolio was one of the few real assets behind the motive for the acquisition.

As of December 31, 2007 (mind that date as many operational sales have since been seen), Nortel claimed some 3,650 US patents and about 1,650 patents in other countries  extending across Wireline, Wireless, Datacom, Enterprise and Optical technologies and services. Nortel also noted that it has received patents in the U.S. and elsewhere covering standards-essential, standards-related and other fundamental and core solutions, including patents directed to CDMA, UMTS, 3GPP, 3GPP2, GSM, OFDM/MIMO, LTE, ATM, MPLS, GMPLS, Ethernet, IEEE 802.3, NAT, VoIP, SONET, RPR, GFP, DOCSIS, IMS, Call-Waiting Caller ID and many other areas.  In short, you can see that many companies, sectors, and industries have significant overlaps here.

Patent law is tricky, complex, and extremely complicated.  Patent royalties are often the crown jewels of many companies that never actually have a single operation other than patent ownership.  The term ‘patent troll’ wasn’t created just for laughs.  Then there is the ‘patent workaround’ game where entities dissect patents and come up with a product or process that rework the entire framework of achieving roughly the same endgame.

There are probably dozens of other public technology and communications firms in North America and beyond which are interested in various aspects of the patent portfolio.  Some will probably argue that the future of many patents is murky.  Just keep in mind that intellectual property and the licensing is a multi-billion business.  It is also a field where the owners of the IP claim far more is stolen or worked around without compensation.

Regardless of what the ultimate value of Nortel’s patent portfolio ends up being, this is ultimately the end of the decade-long Nortel death-spiral saga.  As far as the timing of and winners of any such auctions, stay tuned… Anything can happen in bankruptcy court.

JON C. OGG

The 19.9% drop in revenue was to 3.97 billion euros, which was at the lower-end of its own estimates and below revenue estimates of 4.3 to 4.4 billion euros.  One key issue is a drop in orders of older wireless and networking sales and then due to France Telecom cap-ex cuts.  The company showed that its gross profit margin widened by 3.4 points to 36.6%; but the problem is that the operating margins for this year are now seen at 1% to 5% versus 5% previously targeted.  That range was put at 5% to 9% out in 2011.

Cost cuts and job cuts are continuing through next year and the company believes it will have normalized operations by 2011 with expanded margins… and with caveats. The additional cost savings was projected at 300 to 400 million for 2010.    Is that a real normal, or the new normal?  The company claims that the business environment appears to be stabilizing and it is somewhat echoing what Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) said last week about recovery seen in 2010.  The difference is that Alcatel-Lucent sees market growth as being flat to up 5% in 2010 due to next-generation network orders.

In Paris trading, Alcatel-Lucent shares were down over 3% but then went to being down 7%.  It is far too early to have any real indications on US ADRs yet.  The ADRs closed at $31.18 yesterday and the 52-week trading range is $1.09 to $4.95.  If these losses hold, New York should have trading around $3.00 or a tad under.

The broader problems here is that the bias has changed in just the last three weeks and that has created a sell-the-news mentality even on good news.  The question is this…. Based on what John Chambers positioned his company for the return of growth, do you want Cisco or Alcatel-Lucent in your portfolio?  Some will say neither, but it seems a hard bet that many would pick Alcatel-Lucent if they were forced to pick one of the two.

Based upon the night and day tone of the two companies, it seems that if you asked John Chambers how Alcatel-Lucent is as a competitor that Chambers would ask,” Who?”

JON C.OGG

The good news is that you can plan or protect yourself.  On Monday I did an article at OptionsZone.com showing some of the basics with actual trade examples behind hedging against a crash or even getting greedy and betting on a crash.  These include real options trades from DIAMONDS Trust (NYSE: DIA), SPDRs (NYSE: SPY), and PowerShares QQQ (NASDAQ: QQQQ).

This time the problems may not come from the United States after years and years of credit bubbles, over-inflated real estate assets, crazy loans and securitizations, and no real risk monitoring.  There are dozens of issues right now.  China has put the brakes on its bank lending.  The Eurozone is now dealing with major sovereign debt and credit issues from Greece, Spain, and Portugal; and throw in Ireland and Italy to boot.  China and US relations are strained.  The issues in the U.s. are ballooning deficit spending coupled with a massive $1.9 trillion debt limit increase, then coupled with policies that are another huge risk to the economy.  Breaking up the banks could have ongoing consequences, and on.  And to boot, stocks decoupled from real forward valuations because the return of a bull market went from last March until the start of January. The list goes on and on.

We have seen the caution from Robert Prechter of Elliott Wave calling for the next wave of the bear market, and both he and George Soros called gold a bubble.  There we followed the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD).  And then also on Monday we saw Dennis Gartman, of The Gartman Letter, calling for far worse than a 10% correction.

If you believe that Greece is going down or will get saved, I noted yesterday at VSInvestor.com how the ADR of National Bank of Greece SA (NYSE: NBG) has become the new trader proxy for betting on Greece and the emerging Euro plays.

There is a rule in trading and investing.  That is that hoping and praying, at least alone, are two absolutely awful strategies.  You can be bullish and still protect yourself.  You can be bearish and capitalize off this.  Regardless, there are ways to prepare just in case.

JON C. OGG

Online marketing revenues were $184.6 million, a gain of 39.8% from a year earlier; the company had about 223,000 active online marketing customers, up about 13.2% from a year earlier and a 3.2% increase from the previous quarter.

Baidu had a mysterious drop at the end of the trading day and shares closed down 1.85% at $435.01.  In the after-hours session we have shares trading up 9% at $471.84.  We’ll have to double-check this, but anything above $470.25 looks like an all-time high.  Until the data is heard from the conference call where the company can forecast its win from the Google-China fight, we’d consider this one unfinished business.

JON C. OGG

While there are no assurances a sale of stock or other securities will ever be made, it filed to sell up to $100 million of any combination of Common Stock, Preferred Stock, Debt Securities, Warrants, and Units.  While no underwriters are named and while that usually means a deal is not imminent, there are some issues to consider below that would lead many to believe an offering is coming sooner rather than later.  The company manufactures and sells organic liquid compound fertilizers, organic granular compound fertilizers and related agricultural products in China.

Shares had traded as high as $18.48 today, but in about 10 minutes after the filing the stock is down to $16.91 and only up 0.65% now on the day on 1.97 million shares.  The company posted earnings just yesterday and had announced a forward split just before that, and calling its shares volatile might be an understatement.

Here is that language that is of concern that may bring a sooner securities sale:

On October 19, 2009 we issued (i) an aggregate of 2,785,536 shares of common stock and (ii) warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 1,857,028 shares of common stock at an initial exercise price of approximately $5.38 per share, subject to adjustment, to Carlyle Asia Growth Partners IV, L.P. and CAGP IV Co-Investment, L.P. (collectively, the “Carlyle Investors”) for a purchase price of $15,000,000. The exercise price of the warrants has a floor of approximately $1.3285 per share, and in the event that the warrants are exercised at that price, we would issue an additional 2,333,331 shares (the “Additional Warrant Shares”).  We are obligated to issue up to 7,000,000 shares of common stock (the “Make-Good Shares”) to the Carlyle Investors in the event that we fail to meet a predetermined net income target of $11.5 million for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2009.  If we meet the net income target we will not issue any additional shares upon exercise of the warrants or any Make-Good Shares.  The warrants issued to the Carlyle Investors will become exercisable on April 19, 2010 and expire April 19, 2012.

We granted the Carlyle Investors a one-year right of participation in future offerings by us of shares of our common stock, debt or equity securities convertible, exercisable or exchangeable into common stock, or debt securities.  The right of participation was granted individually, on a pro rata basis based upon each investor’s original subscription amount, and collectively no less than $5 million and no more than $10 million.  In addition, we granted the Carlyle Investors the right to collectively designate one person to serve as a member of our board of directors.  On December 23, 2009, we appointed Carlyle’s designee, Zheng “Anne” Wang, to serve as a member of our Board of directors.  On January 8, 2010, the board of directors also appointed Charles Law to serve as a member of our board of directors.  The board of directors determined that Mr. Law was an “independent director” as that term is defined and determined in accordance with Rule 5605(a)(2) of the Marketplace Rules of The NASDAQ Stock Market, LLC and Section 10A(m)(3) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.

In connection with the transaction, we entered into a registration rights agreement, pursuant to which the Company agreed to prepare and file a registration statement covering the resale of the 1,392,768 shares and the warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 928,514 shares of common stock (collectively, the “Registrable Securities”) no later than January 31, 2010.  On February 1, 2010, we agreed with Carlyle to extend the deadline for filing such registration statement until March 1, 2010.

As far as the use of funds, the company noted in the filing:

“We intend to use the net proceeds from the sale of the securities covered by this prospectus for general corporate purposes, which may include, but is not limited to, working capital, capital expenditures, research and development expenditures, acquisitions of new technologies or businesses and the establishment of branded chain stores.  The precise amount, use and timing of the application of such proceeds will depend upon our funding requirements and the availability and cost of other capital.”

JON C. OGG