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Does The S&P Top 1,000 Before Crude Trades Above $100?

There may be some exceptions to the rule that crude and the stock market both trade substantially higher for a long period of time. The price of oil is bound to be seen as a harbinger of inflation and the enemy of consumer and business discretionary spending. Households paying $3 for gas are not likely to return to malls and showrooms. Airlines, truckers, and firms that rely on oil and petrochemicals will have narrowing margins or, in some cases, growing losses, if oil continues to rise at what has been a remarkable pace. Read More »

Posted on: June 2, 2009 – 3:39 am in Market Close, Oil & Gas

Falling In Love With The Sucker Rally (C)(GE)(SIRI)(AAPL)

The market rise of the last two weeks has been described as a “sucker” or a bear market rally. One means about the same as the other. The premise is that the long term trend of the indexes is down. Once in awhile, investors will stir from their depressions to watch the dead cat bounce. In this case, the Dow is up 10% since March 9.

The last long rally the market had ran from March of 2003, when the DJIA was 7,740 to almost 14,100 in October 2007. An investor in an index fund doubled his money and did even better if dividends were factored in. No one calls the long leg up in the market a sucker rally, but it was for those who did not sell their stocks until early this month when the Dow dropped below 6,600.

Posted on: March 18, 2009 – 3:56 am in Market Close, Market Open, Most Actives, AAPL, C, GE, SIRI

Should The Market Ever Go Up 7% In A Day?

In a poor economy and a market that is trading down on most days, a drop of 7% may be breathtaking, but it is not unexpected. With predictions of 7% or 8% GDP contraction and 9% unemployment by the end of the year, stocks should rarely trade up. A 7% increase in one day has to be a mistake.

The rally that took the S&P 500 up 6.4% to 720 got most of its fuel from bank stocks. Whipping boy Citigroup (C) moved up 38% and that pulled other banks such as Wells Fargo (WFC) up almost 20%.

What appears to make little sense is that the rally spread to firms that have nothing to do with the financial and banking sector. Intel (INTC) rose 11%. PC sales are still expected to plummet this year. Shares ofTime Warner (TWX) soared 13%. The company’s studio released “Watchmen”, which was No.1 at the box office over the weekend but since TWX is in several large businesses beyond films the increase is inexplicable.

Posted on: March 11, 2009 – 4:02 am in Financial Stocks, Market Close

War Is Hell, The Markets Turn Down Mid-Session (LEH)(MER)(INTC)(CSCO)(AAPL)(EBAY)(RIMM)

With a $6 a barrel drop in oil prices, this was supposed to be one of the best days of the year for the stock markets. The Nasdaq opened up 55 points at 2,402 and then reversed itself to trade down .5% at 2 PM. The S&P 500 moved up almost 20 point in early trading and then swung down .2%.

The market has made a simple decision. The economy is not getting any better. It is getting worse. Oil at $110 will not help enough to offset falling personal income, rising unemployment, a tough housing market, and attrition in corporate spending.

Posted on: September 2, 2008 – 1:21 pm in Market Close, AAPL, CSCO, EBAY, INTC, Leh, MER, RIMM

Asia Markets 8/8/08 (LFC)(CN)

Markets in Asia were mixed with Shanghai off sharply.

The Nikkei rose .3% to 13,168. Mazda was up 2.6% to 589. Sharp was off 1.5% to 1430.

The Hang Seng fell 1.2% to 21,837. China Life (LFC) fell 2.6% to 28.60. China Netcom (CN) fell 3% to 22.90.

The Shanghai Composite dropped 4.5% to 2,606.

Data from Reuters

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: August 8, 2008 – 2:25 am in Market Close, CN, LFC

Market Drop But No Surrender

The Dow was down 370 points, or 2.7%. Nasdaq fell almost the same amount.

But, that was not the story. What happened at the end of the day is what was important. The market did not roll over and surrender. It bottomed at the end, but it did not collapse. The Dow did not give up another 100 points in the last 15 minutes.

That points the market toward Monday. The lesson of the ‘87 Crash was that getting out on Friday was the right thing to do. Waiting over the weekend was a bad call

The smart money obviously does not believe Monday will be the end of the world because it held the line at the end of trading today.

Wall St. hopes that the trading in the last 15 minutes was based on the right sentiment.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 19, 2007 – 3:07 pm in Market Close

StreetInsider.com After-Hours Movers 03/19

Systemax Inc. (NYSE: SYX) 17% LOWER; reports Q4 EPS of $0.22 compared to $0.09 for the same period last year. Net sales increased 11% to $648 million compared to $583 million in the fourth quarter of 2005. Announces Special $1.00 Per Share Dividend.

Rambus Inc. (Nasdaq: RMBS) 5% HIGHER; said the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has stayed portions of its remedy order In the Matter of Rambus Inc. The stay is effective upon Rambus’ filing of a timely petition for review in a court of appeals. Rambus plans to appeal both the FTC’s liability and remedy orders in their entirety.

Ballard Power Systems (Nasdaq: BLDP) 3.8% HIGHER; announced that it has been awarded a research and development contract from the US Department of Defense (DoD) for a materials handling equipment application cost reduction and demonstration program. The contract is valued at up to US $5.88 million.

SIGA Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: SIGA) 3% HIGHER; continues today’s 14% move higher after announcing that a toddler who inadvertently contracted eczema vaccinatum has been treated with ST-246, SIGA’s lead smallpox drug candidate, pursuant to an Emergency Investigational New Drug Application (IND) granted by the FDA, and is now improving.

Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. (Nasdaq: LEND) 3% LOWER; gives back some recent gains. Stock down 17.9% intra-day.

ViroPharma Inc. (Nasdaq: VPHM) 3% LOWER; intends to offer $200 million aggregate principal amount of Convertible Senior Notes due March 2017.

http://www.streetinsider.com/

Posted on: March 19, 2007 – 4:47 pm in Market Close

StreetInsider.com Trading Radar 03/16

CPI and Core CPI are expected at 8:30AM ET with economists looking for 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively.

Industrial Production is expected at 9:15AM ET with economists looking for 0.3%

Capacity Utilization is expected at 9:15AM ET with economists looking for 81.3%

AnnTaylor (NYSE: ANN) is expected to report results before the open Friday with analysts looking for EPS of $0.29 and revenues of $610.78 million.

Carnival (NYSE: CCL) is expected to report results before the open Friday with analysts looking for EPS of $0.34 and revenues of $2.64 billion.

Imax (Nasdaq: IMAX) is expected to report results before the open Friday with analysts looking for a loss of $0.07 and revenues of $32.08 million.

University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (March Prel.) is expected at 10AM ET with economists looking for 89

Medifast (AMEX: MED) is expected to report results after the close Friday with analysts looking for EPS of $0.15 and revenues of $14.2 million.

http://www.streetinsider.com

Posted on: March 15, 2007 – 4:07 pm in Market Close

US Stock Market Wrap (MAR 5, 2007)

DJIA                      12,050.41; Down 63.69 (0.53%)
NASDAQ             2,340.68; Down 27.32 (1.15%)
S&P500             1,374.11; Down 13.06 (0.94%)
10YR-Bond       4.518%; Up 0.003
NYSE Volume    3,487,356,000
NASD Volume    2,252,398,000
VIX                      18.71 (+0.10)

Keep in mind the DJIA level and S&P 500 level may not be 100% accurate as there were some saying the closing levels weren’t actually in yet. The NYSE is still having issues.

Interestingly enough, the first-line defensive stock names didn’t fare too well today with only 6 of the 20 on the listing closing in positive territory. Most of the names had been up today earlier, but that wasn’t in the cards. The markets are still trying to find their ground. Out of the 30 DJIA components, only these closed up on the day: Caterpillar (CAT), H-P (HPQ), IBM (IBM), Coca-Cola (KO), 3M (MMM), & Merck (MRK). While these have more cyclical-oriented names (CAT, HPQ, IBM, MMM) than defensive (KO, MRK), this was still a disappointing day since we had been in positive territory and the defensive names were 15/20 up.

Every day the bullish market pundits keep talking about the great buying opportunities. The perma-bears and those who think the bottom is falling out of the economy also seem far too pessimistic in a time when it doesn’t feel like the manner in which they are describing it. Until we see a marked bottom in those 20 first-line defensive names it is hard to want to stand up and try to be a hero.

Jon C. Ogg
March 5, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: March 5, 2007 – 4:16 pm in Market Close

20 ‘Defensive Stocks’ For a Crummy Market

Stock Tickers: KO, PEP, JNJ, MRK, PFE, PG, CAG, BUD, HRL, CPB, K, GIS, DUK, CL, MO, RAI, MCD, PYX, KFT, TAP

DJIA             12,216.24; Down 416.02 (3.29%)
NASDAQ          2,407.87; Down 96.65 (3.86%)
S&P500          1,399.04; Down 50.33 (3.47%)
10Yr-Bond       4.5130%; Down 0.1180
NYSE-Volume 4,164,578,000
NASD-Volume 3,045,369,000
VIX                      18.31 (+7.16)

This was the worst drop on the DJIA since the pre-Iraq trading and since after the market reopened after the September 11, 2001 tragedy; all 30 DJIA components closed down on the day. The massive sell-off seen today was on record NYSE trading volume. Was writing about the VIX showing a complacency on the ‘fear index’ part of the reasoning of a drop? Or was it the record margin borrowing on stocks? We can blame China, we can blame a horrible Durable Goods number, we can blame ex-FOMC head Greenspan for hinting at the risks of a recession. Blame whatever you want, but the selling built and built and when the NYSE trading curbs were lifted the market took a bungee jump.

There have been reports that many of the stocks actually got stuck at low prices and there is also talk that the programs went unchecked and the electronic trading allowed the markets to suddenly tank. There was a flurry of trades around 3:00 PM EST where all of a sudden the programs took the market from down more than 200 points to down more than 500 points. You can probably bet there were many computing errors from the automated system on such large trading volume. This was a record day on NYSE volume and the system froze on many stocks. John Thain’s argument for eliminating the trading floor without people just got hosed, and rightfully so. IN a FLOOR BROKER world alongside electronic trading they are obligated to maintain a somewhat orderly market.

Here are the basic go-to stocks that holders tend to flock to when the stock market sells off heavily. You cannot automatically assume that just because investors go into "safety" stocks and "defensive stocks" that they do not fall at all. When markets go into freefall, these usually tend to fall less but they often still fall. Most of these stocks were lower today, but if you look they were not even close to the drop seen in the broader markets. They do tend to fall less and here is a basic remedial list of defensive stock names, but keep in mind these are not in any particular order:

1) Coca-Cola (KO) $46.39 (-$1.33)
2) Pepsi (PEP) $62.70 (-$1.79)
3) J&J (JNJ) $63.05 (-$1.25)
4) Merck (MRK) $43.18 (-$1.30)
5) Pfizer (PFE) $25.14 (-$0.70)
6) P&G (PG) $61.25 (-$3.19)
7) ConAgra Food (CAG) $24.99 (-$0.37)
Anheuser Busch (BUD) $49.01 (-$0.80)
9) Hormel (HRL) $36.65 (-$0.90)
10) Campbell’s Soup (CPB) $40.44 (-$1.26)
11) Kellogg (K) $49.04 (-$1.01)
12) General Mills (GIS) $56.61 (-$1.17)
13) Duke Energy (DUK) $19.62 (-$0.39)
14) Colgate-Polmolive (CL) $67.34 (-$1.13)
15) Altria (MO) $82.67 (-$3.00)
16) Reynolds American (RAI) $60.62 (-$2.17)
17) McDonalds (MCD) $44.46 (-$1.34)
18) Clorox (CLX) $63.60 (-$1.58)
19) Kraft (KFT) $32.08 (-$1.19)
20) Molson Coors (TAP) $86.02 (-$0.59)

Now, before you go out buying everything defensive you have to make sure you are even concerned about a drop of this magnitude. Did the global markets really change that much? They may have and they may not have. And you have to ask why General Electric (GE) was only down 1.9% at $34.66 on the day.

Jon C. Ogg
February 27, 2007

Jon Ogg is a partner in 24/7 Wall St., LLC and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: February 27, 2007 – 4:44 pm in Consumer Goods, Dividend, Drug companies, Food, Index, Large Cap Stocks, Market Close, Pharmaceuticals, Press Digest

Market Wrap (JAN 29, 2007)

Stocks in the news today; followed by Stock Ticker, closing price, and net price change.

DJIA 12,490.78; Up 3.76 (0.03%)
NASDAQ 2,441.09; Up 5.60 (0.23%)
S&P500 1,420.62; Down 1.56 (0.11%)
10YR-Bond 4.8920%; Up 0.013
NYSE Volume 2,695,803,000
NASD Volume 1,978,324,000

Verizon (VZ-NYSE) after meeting earnings.
VZ $38.03 $0.20

Citigroup (C-NYSE) fell after buying Egg for online banking in UK.
C $54.06 $(0.61)

Intel (INTC) on making smaller chips to compete against AMD (AMD-NYSE); AMD shares didn’t reactto well as they are already being guttered.
INTC $20.89 $0.36
AMD $15.95 $(0.27)

Apple (AAPL-NASDAQ) up after Needham takes target to $135.00.
AAPL $85.94 $0.56

Sirius (SIRI) down 1%…would Karmazin leave?
SIRI $3.70 $(0.04)

Symantec (SYMC-NASDAQ) fell after making an acquisition.
SYMC $17.52 $(0.25)

Amgen (AMGN) slid again.
AMGN $69.97 $(1.53)

Bristol-Myers Squib (BMY) rose on hopes of a Sanofi-Aventis buyout.
BMY $27.43 $1.22

Abitibi-Consolidated (ABY-NYSE) & Bowater (BOW-NYSE) up big on ‘merger of equals.’
ABY $3.33 $0.69
BOW $27.44 $5.29

Countrywide (CFC-NYSE) up on continued partnership hopes with Bank of America (BAC-NYSE).
CFC $43.38 $1.38
BAC $51.46 $(0.58)

Molecular Devices (MDCC-NASDAQ) up huge on buyout.
MDCC $35.07 $11.19

First Republic Bank (FRC-NYSE) up big after Merrill Lynch acquires it, MER shares fell marginally.
FRC $53.63 $15.33
MER $92.39 $(2.14)

Laureate (LAUR) up 11% on management buyout with private equity consortium.
LAUR $60.80 $6.39

ISSUES FOR TUESDAY:
Economics: JAN Consumer Confidence.

Pre-Market Earnings: 3M (MMM) $1.14; Burger King (BKC) $0.26;Diebold $0.74; Illinois Tool (ITW) $0.73; JetBlue (JBLU) $0.11; Kellogg(K) $0.46; Merck (MRK) $0.50; Wyeth (WYE) $0.71.

Earnings After Close: Celestica (CLS) $0.04; Chubb (CB)$1.34; Flextronics (FLEX) $0.22; Juniper (JNPR) $0.19; Red Envelope(REDE) $0.49; SanDisk (SNDK) $0.75; SiRF (SIRF) $0.24; WebSense (WBSN)$0.25

Posted on: January 29, 2007 – 5:00 pm in Market Close

US Stock Market Close (JAN 10, 2007)

DJIA 12,442.16; Up 25.56 (0.21%)
NASD 2,459.33; Up 15.50 (0.63%)
S&P500 1,414.85; Up 2.74 (0.19%)
10YR-Bond 4.682% Up 0.026
NYSE Volume 2,698,448,000
NASD Volume 2,242,837,000

Apple (AAPL) continued its meteoric rise up another 4.8% to $97.00 (new highs) after analysts raised targets and estimates as expected.

eBay (EBAY) fell 1.3% to $25.28 after reports surfaced it was buying StubHub for some $300 million, a hefty sum.

Eastman Kodak (EK) proved irrelevance by falling 1.4% to $25.28 after selling ist health imaging unit for some $2.55 Billion.

Placer Sierra (PLSB) rose 15% to $27.19 after Wells Fargo acquired the company at a rough 20% premium; see the Bait Shop call that is a similar stock to Placer Sierra.

Gap (GPS) Fell 0.75% to $20.04 after firing some key managers at Gap Adult and Old Navy, but they kept Pressler on as CEO (one of 10 CEOS that need to go).

Sears Holdings (SHLD) rose 3.5% to $172.09 on higher earnings and lower same-store-sales. See our take.

International Aluminum (IAL) rose 4% to $52.08 after Genstar Capital announced a $51 buyout, anticipating a higher price.

Alcoa (AA) rose 6% to $30.23 after beating yesterday’s earnings.

Adaptec (ADPT) fell 7% to $4.16 on an earnings warning.

JCrew (JCG) fell 4% to $36.24 after the private equity owners sold 1/3 of their holdings into the lock-up expiration.

Walgreens (WAG) fell 0.7% to $45.58 on a $1 Billion share buyback plan.

Exxon (XOM) fell 1.5% to $70.99 on lower oil prices and Chevron (CVX) fell 1.7% to $69.41 on earnings and margin warnings.

Jon C. Ogg

Posted on: January 10, 2007 – 4:16 pm in Market Close

US Stock Market Close (JAN 9, 2007)

DJIA 12,416.60; Down 6.89 (0.06%)
NASDAQ 2,443.83; Up 5.63 (0.23%)
S&P500 1,412.11; Down 0.73 (0.05%)
10YR-Bond 4.656%; Down 0.004
NYSE Volume 2,937,431,000
NASD Volume 2,116,141,000

Apple (AAPL) rose 8% to $92.57 on over 100 million shares after Steve Jobs at MacWorld unveiled the set-top box to stream video from the computer to the TV and unveiling the long long awaited iPhone via Cingular.

R-I-M (RIMM) fell almost 8% to $131.00 and Palm (PALM) fell almost 6% to $13.92 on concerns that Apple phones would steal customers away and pushout orders for the start of the year until the phones are available via Cingular in June to July. Motorola (MOT) also fell another 1.8% to $18.26 after Jobs noted the irrelevance of all the others to date.

AT&T (T) rose 0.4% to $33.94 as it owns Cingular.

Sprint Nextel (S) fell 11% to $17.45 after it issued an earnings warning, said it was cutting five-thousand jobs, and announced it Lost some 300,000 Nextel subscribers.

CANTV (VNT-NYSE/ADR) fell again, this time by 27% to $12.20,after Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has vowed to Nationalize the infrastructure in the country. That is the political term for government stealing control from stockholders that bought into Privatization.

Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI) fell 1.3% to $3.71 after disclosing it was paying a contracted $83 million bonus to shock jock Howard Stern after getting more than 2 million additional subscribers ove plan; deal was agreed to in October 2004.

Dell (DELL) rose 2.5% to $26.84 after unveiling its new monitors, gaming systems, and media suites at CES.

Celgene (CELG) fell 4% to $54.85 after guidance was only in-line to a hair under plan.

As oil fell to as low as under $54 per barrel, major oil names gave up ground again: Exxon (XOM) -0.7% to $72.11, ConocoPhillips (COP) -2.6% to $66.51 and Chevron (CVX) -1.1% to $70.63; Halliburton (HAL) -0.9% to $28.71.

Natus (BABY) lowered guidance to lower-end of range and its shares fell 3% to $15.69.

Great Atlantic Pacific & Tea (GAP) rose 4.5% to $27.40 after it reported narrower losses and looks actually profitable.

Helen of Troy (HELE) fell 10% to $22.19 after missing earnings expectations, while investors were hoping it was finally turning around.

Juniper (JNPR) fell 0.9% to $20.06 after it yesterday named Stephen Elop as its Chief Operating Officer, former President/CEO of Macromedia.

Mentor Graphics (MENT) raised guidance; stock rose 2%.

Osiris Therapeutics (OSIR) rose by 6% to $26.64 after receiving FDA Fast Track designation on its stem cell treatment for Crohn’s Disease.

William Sonoma (WSM) rose by almost 6% to $33.10 after saying its holiday sales were +1.1% and sees EPS $1.03-1.09 vs $1.03 estimates.

Garmin Ltd. (GRMN) fell almost 4% to $51.93 after it was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ at Merrill Lynch on competitive and margin pressures ahead in 2007 after it ran 60% in 2006.

Jon C. Ogg
January 9, 2007

Posted on: January 9, 2007 – 4:10 pm in Market Close

US Stock Market Wrap (JAN 8, 2007)

DJIA 12,423.49; Up 25.48 (0.21%)
NASDAQ 2,438.20; Up 3.95 (0.16%)
S&P500 1,412.84; Up 3.13 (0.22%)
10YR-Bond 4.66% ; Up 0.014
NYSE Volume 2,667,748,000
NASD Volume 1,880,169,000

Time Warner (TWX) rose 0.6% to $22.37 as the tracking stock for Time Warner Cable (TWC) is closer and after unveiling an AOL Video pact with Sony at CES.

Gap Inc. (GPS) rose 7% to $20.26 after CNBC’s DAVID FABER reported that the company had hired Goldman Sachs to review strategic alternatives for the company. Paul Pressler still needs to go. Pressler still needs to go, and here is what Cramer said on it on STOP TRADING Today on CNBC.

Wal-Mart (WMT) fell 0.8% to $47.00 after Goldman Sachs cut its Buy rating down to a Neutral. Lee Scott needs to go and the latest ad campaign is just going to draw more fire.

NCR Corp (NCR) rose a sharp 3.4% to $43.79, but had been up 6%, after the company unexpectedly announced it woul;d split off its Teradata unit. Here was our backdoor-paly note on it this morning.

RadioShack (RSH) rose 11% to $18.76 after the company announced its same store sale would be lower in Q4 and in the first half of 2007, but said cost cutting and realignments would make profits higher for Q4. We noted some data here on this today.

Houston Exploration (THX) rose 4.1% to $50.69 after Forest Oil announced it would acquire the company.

Level 3 Communications (LVLT) rose 2.5% to $6.08 after Jim Cramer named it his #1 Top Speculative Stock for 2007 on Friday’s MAD MONEY.

Royal Caribbean (RCL) managed to close up 0.95% at $43.78 despite the fact that someone tried to smuggle C4 on board one of their cruise ships.

CA Nacional Tele de Venezuela (VNNYSE/ADR) fell 14% after Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was announcing he’d nationalize the industry in Venzuela.

Therma Wave (TWAV) rose 28% to $1.61 after KLA-Tencor announced it was acquiring the stock for $1.65 per share.

United Surgical Partners (USPI) rose 11% to $30.58 after receiving a $31.05 buyout offer from Welsh carson Anderson & Stowe, but the shares have traded as high as $40 in the last year.

IBM (IBM) rose 1.5% to $98.90 after UBS raised its rating to a Buy and gave a new $118 price target.

General Dynamics (GD) rose 4.5% to $78.00 on a Cowen & Co. upgrade.

Jon C. Ogg
January 8, 2007

Posted on: January 8, 2007 – 4:19 pm in Market Close

US Stock Market Close (JAN 5, 2007)

DJIA 12,398.01; Down 82.68 (0.66%)
Nasdaq 2,434.25; Down 19.18 (0.78%)
S&P 500 1,409.71; Down 8.63 (0.61%)
10YR-Bond 4.646%; Up 0.028
NYSE Volume 2,912,830,000
NASD Volume 2,028,547,000

Jobs numbers were strong with 167,000 new jobs and a 4.5% unemployment and wages were up 0.5%, so the Dollar rebounded as the chances of a rate cut by march all but disappeared. Commodity prices also continied to slide. Wasn’t everyone compalining about a low Dollar last month and complaining about high commodity prices?

Oil closed up $0.72 per barrel at NYMEX to $54.90, but that is afterthe price was down as low as $54.90. Exxon (XOM) rose 0.7% to $73.22 and Oil Service HOLDRs (OIH) rose 0.5% to $130.75.

Best Buy (BBY) rose 0.3% to $50.00 after giving guidance that wasn’t as bad as last month.

Motorola (MOT) was the bomb of the day falling almost 8% to $18.94 after a revenue cut that will know out 1/3 of its earnings.

Nokia (NOK) saw its ADR’s fall 5% to $19.84 and Ericsson (ERIC) saw its ADR’s fall 1.5% to $40.93.

Yahoo! (YHOO) rose over 3% to $27.74 on hopes that it would sign a major content deal in india.

Level3 (LVLT) rose 6% in hopes that it would be Cramer’s Speculative Stock pick tonight, so we’ll have to see.

Dell (DELL) closed down 0.3% to $26.16 after JPMorgan downgraded that Neutral call to Underweight, although there wasn’t much new in the call. Click here to see what we said about the call being old and the initial 2%drop being an overreaction.

Openwave (OPWV) fell another 5.7% to $8.93 as the company issued an earnings warning.

Flextronics (FLEX) rose 0.5%to $11.59 after the company was started as Buy at UBS.

XM Satellite (XMSR) rose 2% to $15.32 after reporting more than a total of 7 million subscribers by the end of 2006.

NYSE (NYX) saw its shares rise over 7% to $102.39 after Cramer noted it was his #1 Growth Pick for 2007.

Stay tuned for Cramer’s Top 3 speculative stock plays tonight. Below are his picks from Wednesday and Thursday for Growth and Value Picks for 2007:
#1 growth pick is the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
#2 is Apple (AAPL).
#3 is Cisco Systems (CSCO).

If you want to read through to the top VALUE PICKS for 2007 that Cramer gave on Wednesday night, here is the list:

1) Altria (MO)
2) Goldman Sachs (GS)
3) Halliburton (HAL)

Jon C. Ogg
January 5, 2007

Posted on: January 5, 2007 – 4:19 pm in Market Close

US Stock Market Wrap (JAN 4, 2007)

DJIA 12,480.69; Up 6.17 (0.05%)
NASDAQ 2,453.43; Up 30.27 (1.25%)
S&P500 1,418.34; Up 1.74 (0.12%)
10YR-Bond 4.618%; Down 0.046
NYSE Volume 2,938,063,000
NASD Volume 2,079,107,000

Slower factory orders in December pulled the markets down, but lower energy prices helped bolster non-energy shares. NYSE volume reached almost 3 Billion shares again.

As oil prices gave up more than $2.00 more per barrel down to $55.79, Exxon (XOM) fell almost 2% to $72.72 and Oil Service HOLDRS (OIH) fell 2.5% more to $130.01.

Time Warner (TWX) rose 1.7% to $22.42 after the company unveiled a multi-format DVD disc that can accomodate HD-DVD and Blu-ray DVD formats and after more talk thatthe Time Warner Cable stock could trade as early as next week or the week after.

Microvision (MVIS) rose a sharp 22% to $3.74 on word that it was unveiling a candy-sized projection display for mobile devices at CES this weekend.

Intel (INTC) rose some 4% to $21.17 after Banc of America put estimates toward the higher end for the quarter since they didn’t warn in late December from prior levels.

DiVX (DIVX) rose 6% to $23.24 after unveiling a new streaming platform for the Consumer Electronics Show.

ebay (EBAY) rose more than 4% to $31.59 on new rounds of listing fee hikes, which is odd when you consider how much controversy this has caused in the past. Maybe the alternative auction platforms just aren’t winning like eBay did.

Altria (MO) rose 1.3% to $87.65 on word that Jim Cramer on MAD MONEY listed it as his #1 Value Stock for 2007.

Six Flags (SIX) rose almost 6% to $5.69 after Jim Cramer interviewed the CEO and said the stock is going higher.

Uranerz (URZ), a thin volume Uranium exploration company, fell 13.5% to $3.72 after making another property rights acquisition yesterday as energy prices slid.

Van der Moolen (VDM) fell 2.3% to $5.95 after more word surfaced that NYSE specialist firm Bear Hunter was only getting valued at $0.30 on the dollar as fears mount of a disappearing NYSE floor.

Cisco Systems (CSCO) rose 2.6% to $28.46 after making another data security acquisition for more than $800 million. It acquired privately-held IronPort.

BEA Systems (BEAS) rose another 5% to $12.92 after research reports indicated Hewlett Packard could take a shot at buying the company, and that rumor is a re-rumor of one that has been around for about 7 years now (literally).

Research in Motion (RIMM) rose over 7% to $138.57 after a push-to-talk licensing pact with Kodiak Networks.

Jon C. Ogg
January 4, 2007

Posted on: January 4, 2007 – 4:20 pm in Market Close

US Stock Market Wrap (JAN 3, 2006)

Stock Tickers: GM, HD, AMGN, CYTK, XOM, SMH, OIH, SIRI, SONS, AMZN, T, TWX

DJIA 12,474.52; Up 11.37 (0.09%)
NASDAQ 2,423.16; Up 7.87 (0.33%)
S&P500 1,416.60; Down 1.70 (0.12%)
10YR-Bond 4.664%; Down 0.046
NYSE Volume 3,334,104,000
NASD Volume 2,423,423,000

Today started as out as a huge uupday with triple-digit gains, but we ended up well into red territory before late day buying put the market in positive territory. The ISM reading posted 51.4 for manufacturing in December, up from 49.5 in November. The FOMC minutes also still showed inflationary concerns are present. Take a look at NYSE trading volume and see that it is OVER 3 Billion Shares.

General Motors (GM) fell 4% to $29.45 after weak sales for December and after Banc of America cut an already weak neutral trating to a SELL.
The big story of the day was Home Depot (HD) and CEO nardelli agreeing to call it splitsville, with a $210 million exit package. HD shares rose 2.4% to $41.10.

Cytokinetics (CYTO) rose 11% to $8.34 on an Amgen heart failure drug pact.

Exxon (XOM) fell over 3% to $74.11 and Oil Service HOLDRs (OIH) fell 4.5% to $133.35 after oil fell 4.5% to under $59.00 today.

The Semiconductor HOLDRs (SMH) fell 0.2% to $33.57 after Goldman Sachs downgraded many key chip names.

Sirius (SIRI) rose 5.6% to $3.74 after closing 2006 with more than 6.02 million subscribers and claiming positive cash flows.

Sonus Networks (SONS) rose 7.4% to $7.08 after claiming record orders for Q4.

Amazon.com (AMZN) fell 1.9%as Citigroup issued a SELL rating on the stock.

AT&T (T) fell over 2% to $34.95 after the first full trading session since approval of its BellSouth merger.

Time Warner (TWX) rose 1% to $22.03 after selling its Farmer lifestyle magazine, closing the swap with Comcast for cable assets, after agreeing to carry the new Fox Business Network and after a strong movie weekend.

Jon C. Ogg
January 3, 2007

Posted on: January 3, 2007 – 4:16 pm in Market Close

US Stock market Wrap (DEC 28, 2006)

DJIA 12,501.52; Down 9.05 (0.07%)
NASD 2,425.57; Down 5.65 (0.23%)
S&P500 1,424.73; Down 2.11 (0.15%)
10YR-Bond 4.69%; Up 0.036
NYSE Volume 1,469,536,000
NASD Volume 1,237,134,000

Consumer confidence unexpectedly showed a higher reading of 109.0 in December from the Conference Board and existing homes sales posted a 0.6% rise in November. This was a prime example of a low volume holiday trading session.

Apple (AAPL) was the focal stock of the day with shares falling 0.8% to $80.87 after the Financial Times reported that STEVE JOBS was involved in unapproved options dating back to 2000 or 2001 for 7.5 million shares that were later turned in.

Goldman Sachs (GS) fell 0.5% to $200.80 after it raised a $6.5 Billion infrastructure fund.

TASER International (TASR) ran uyp 4.1% to $7.81 after it announced another $2.3M in follow-on orders from customers.

Benihana (BNHNA) rose a sharp 12.8% to $29.77 after Sanders Morris harris raised its rating of the sushi and Japanese steak house operator to a Strong Buy and noted it as a single best idea, making this the research call of the day.

Ford (F) fell 1% to $7.50 on various reports from researchers expecting another dismal month of sales (get ready for more of the same).

Encysive ((ENCY) fell a sharp 23% to $4.49 after the FDA extended a review for its Thelin product.

CDC Corp (CHINA) rose 11% to $9.37 after Oppenheimer started the company with a Buy rating.

Recent IPO Fuwei Films (FFHL) rose a sharp 34% to $17.50 on positive talk on the street.

Openwave (OPWV) rose almost 8% to $9.52 after an activist shareholder holds more than 10% of the float and a proxy contest.

AsiaInfo (ASIA) rose 19% to $7.83 after a contract upgrade from China Telecom.

Jon C. Ogg
December 28, 2006

Posted on: December 28, 2006 – 4:19 pm in Market Close

US Stock Market Wrap (DEC 27, 2006)

DJIA 12,510.57; Up 102.94 (0.83%)
NASDAQ 2,431.22; Up 17.71 (0.73%)
S&P500 1,426.84; Up 9.94 (0.70%)
10YR-Bond 4.654% Up 0.051
NYSE Volume 1,626,563,000
NASD Volume 1,186,262,000

This was supposed to be another quiet day, but the slightly stronger housing numbers helped propel the buyers today. The media was mostly full of reports discussing the life and presidency of Gerald Ford.

Apple (AAPL) was the biggest mover of the Horsemen stocks today.; it closed actually up $0.01 at $81.52 but it had been as low as $76.77 on the options probe by the SEC having potential criminal implication on former officers and on the same report saying Steve Jobs hired separate counsel in the matter.

The iShares "Home Constriction" (ITB) rose 2% to $42.42 after the November new home sales showed slighly better than expected readings.

First Solar (FSLR) rose 6% to $28.81 after it was given mostly positive brokerage firm reports after its quiet period ended,

Citigroup (C) rose 2.3% to $56.42 after Jim Cramer on TheStreet.com website said Chuck Prince would likely be gone within a year.

Cadmus (CDMS) rose 16% to $24.46 after receiving a $24.75 buyout from Cenveo.

NYMEX (NMX) fell 1% to $124.85 after it was started as Hold and Neutral by firms as the quiet period was coming off.

Speedus Corp (SPDE) rose 30% to $1.57 after making its financial filings with the SEC.

Infosonic (IFON) rose a sharp 43% to $5.56 on 11.2 million shares after signing a distribution pact for headsets for LG phones in Latin America.

Sento (SNTO) rose a sharp 68% to $3.24 just ahead of filing earnings because that would keep it from being delisted.

Omrix Biopharma (OMRI) rose 1.3% $31.85 after it filed an application with the FDA; received milestones.

PFSweb (PFSW) rose a sharp 17% to $1.26 on word of a distribution deal with Fathead LLC.

Telik (TELK) fell another 7% to $4.412 on over 20 million shares the day after falling 70% from its cancer drug failing to meet endpoints (How do think the CEO and workers there enjoyed Christmas?).

Jon C. Ogg
December 27, 2006

Posted on: December 27, 2006 – 4:07 pm in Market Close

US Stock Market Close (DEC 27, 2006)