Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) Started as Equal-Weight by Evercore Partners.
Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) Cut to Negative from Neutral by Susquehanna; Reiterated Buy and raised price target objective to $93 by Argus.
Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. (NYSE: DO) Cut to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup.
Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN) Started as Equal-Weight at Barclays.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Reiterated Outperform with $700 price target objective.
Human Genome Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: HGSI) Started as Equal-Weight at Barclays.
Molycorp, Inc. (NYSE: MCP) Started as Hold by ThinkEquity.
NetEase.com (NASDAQ: NTES) featured as aggressive growth stock of the day by Zacks Investment Research.
Newpark Resources, Inc. (NYSE: NR) featured as the Value stock of the day by Zacks Investment Research.
Pepco Holdings Inc (NYSE: POM) Raised to Outperform with $23 price target objective by Credit Suisse.
Pharmacyclics Inc. (NASDAQ: PCYC) has been downgraded by RBC Capital Markets and by Global Hunter this morning.
Sears Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ: SHLD) was initiated as “Underperform” by a firm called Imperial Capital.
SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) was initiated with a Buy rating and was assigned a $2.20 price target objective by Citigroup; Sirius was also featured as the Bull of the Day by Zacks Investment Research.
Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN) lowered estimates and targets by Credit Suisse.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) Started as Market Perform by BMO.

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JON C. OGG

The Global X Social Media Index ETF tracks the Solactive Social Media Index, and the three largest components in the underlying index are DeNA Co., Sina Corp. (NASDAQ: SINA) and Netease.com Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES) at 10% exposure each.  Other components are Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) at 4.75%, Yandex N.V. (NASDAQ: YNDX) at 4.75%, Renren Inc. (NASDAQ: RENN) at 4.75%, and Groupon, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) at 4.75%. Other components in the Solactive Social Networks Index which were not given up by name nor by weighting come to 28.15% and two of the names shown on the Solactive breakdown that were not identified by Global X were LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE: LNKD) and United Online Inc. (NASDAQ: UNTD).

This is the first ETF of its kind with a focus on social media companies.  The aim of the ETF is to includes companies “from all over the world that provide social networking, file sharing, and other web-based media applications.”

We won’t bother sharing the growth figures because you have already heard them in some iteration or another.   The index will be adopting new companies as they come public and it even noted that it will “capture these new companies shortly after their public debut.”

The international country exposure is as follows:

• China 36.28%
• United States 26.22%
• Japan 19.95%
• Russia 9.55%
• Germany 2.28%
• “other” 5.65%

Does it seem a bit odd that China is the leading nation in social media’s weighting here considering that the powers that be in China restrict more web usage compared to Western nations?  That may change after Facebook comes public but it is a bit difficult to fathom today.

Needless to say, this is not an ETF which is suitable for widows and orphans.

JON C. OGG

Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) Cut to Neutral at Baird.
Bank of New York-Mellon (NYSE: BK) named as Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) Raised to Outperform at Baird.
Cell Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTIC) named as Bull of the Day at Zacks.
Clearwire Corporation (NASDAQ: CLWR) was Underperform and has been dropped from coverage by BofA/ML as fundamentals are not driving the shares.
ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) Reiterated Buy with $85 target on Focus List at Argus.
Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG) reiterated strong buy as Momentum stock of the day at Zacks.
Gold Fields Limited (NYSE: GFI) named as Value stock of the day at Zacks.
Hatteras Financial Corporation (NYSE: HTS) Cut to Neutral at Macquarie.
The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) Cut to Hold at Jefferies.
NetEase.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES) Raised to Overweight at Piper Jaffray.
Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) Started as Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann.
Rackspace Hosting, Inc (NYSE: RAX) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs, but reportedly Downgraded to Hold at a firm called Benchmark.

JON C. OGG

ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ: ARMH) Raised to Neutral at BofA/ML.
CBOE Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBOE) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (NYSE: CMG) Reiterated Buy and raised target to $300 at Argus.
Citigroup inc. (NYSE: C) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) Cut to Neutral at UBS.  F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV) Raised to Outperform at BMO.
Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) Cut to Neutral at Susquehanna.
Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL) Started as Buy at SocGen.
MedAssets, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDAS) Cut to Neutral at Citigroup.
Netease.com Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Omnivision Technologies (NASDAQ: OVTI) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE: R) Raised to Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.
Sara Lee Corporation (NYSE: SLE) Cut Underperform to as Bear of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.
Stillwater Mining Co. (NYSE: SWC) Added to Focus List at Credit Suisse.
State Street Corp. (NYSE: STT) Reiterated Buy at Argus.
Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) Raised to Conviction Buy List at Goldman Sachs.

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JON C. OGG

Auriga noted that the investable stocks are those with a content advantage, such as Neatease.com with a Buy rating, Perfect World with a Hold rating, and Shanda Games Ltd. with a Buy rating. The caveat on Shanda Games is that its pipeline has to work out.

The research team noted, “We believe the recent weakness in the business performance of China’s online game companies is more an industry trend rather than an individual company’s story. Based on our research, we believe China’s online game industry is undergoing a fundamental change – a transition from one of early stage, fast-paced growth to a more mature market.”

The first factor is that gamers are becoming more sophisticated and they no longer just play any game on the market.  The second reason is that disadvantages are showing up in the item-based revenue model, shortening the lifecycle of a game.

A good example was Giant Interactive’s game, Giant Online and version of ZT recycle, which has a good amount of the original content, so there could be longer times needed to develop new content for a game. One other case is Perfect World with the strongest in-house R&D company, where the average development time has increased to 12-24 months from 6-9 months.

This item-based model may be falling off the cliff… Auriga notes that China’s game operators have experimented with both item-based and time-based revenue models, with the item-based model appearing to gain traction. However, recent weaker than expected performance and guidance among all China online game companies (PWRD, NTES, CYOU, GA, and even GAME/SNDA) point to the negative side of this model.  The notion is that the item-based model is a trade-off between time and money, making developers have to develop games faster and more often.

Then there is the new bear market taking place now in both speculative and normal stocks, which is being magnified in the speculative Chinese stocks.

Giant Interactive Group, Inc. (NYSE: GA) is actually up marginally on the day at $7.12, but the 52-week range is $6.24 to $9.57.

Netease.com Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES) is off by 4% and the $28.62 price compares to a 52-week range of $26.16 to $48.50.

Perfect World Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ: PWRD) is down 0.6% at $25.28, and its 52-week range is $18.37 to $50.49.

Shanda Games Limited (NASDAQ: GAME) is down almost 4% at $5.47 and its 52-week range is $5.25 to $13.00.

Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. (NASDAQ: SNDA) is down 1% at $39.65 and its 52-week range is $38.07 to $65.00.

Changyou.com Limited (NASDAQ: CYOU) was a hot IPO that fizzled.  Its stock is down over 4% at $26.33, but the 52-week range is $26.41 to $48.37.

Tough times are abound.  As we have seen in the United States, video games were thought to be recession-proof.  That turned out to not be the case.

JON C. OGG

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BioSante Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: BPAX) is trading up after announcing positive results of an evaluation of its 2A/Furin technology by Novartis Pharma AG.  Shares were up 5% earlier but shares are up 1.5% at $1.98 on 30,000 shares.

China Techfaith Wireless Communication Technology Limited (NASDAQ: CNTF) is soaring on thin volume after earnings. Revenue was $60.9 million, up 1.8% from Q4-2009 and up 25.1% from the same period of last year.  Shares are up 15% at $2.61 on about 5,000 shares.

Geron Corporation (NASDAQ: GERN) is trading higher this morning on an analyst upgrade and on news that it appointed Hoyoung Huh and Robert Spiegel to its Board of Directors.  While not a lot has been seen in share volumes, the stock is up only about 1% at $5.34 on fairly thin volume.  The 52-week trading range is $4.85 to $9.24 and the average trading volume is roughly 1.1 million shares.

Hauppauge Digital, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAUP) is down again in the pre-market trading after briefly becoming the fad cult stock with exponential gains last week.  Shares were down over 3% at $3.00 on last look.

Netease.com Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES) is trading down almost in the double-digits after the company earned $0.51 EPS, under Thomson Reuters estimate of $0.61.  Revenues were also under plan at $175.1 million also missed expectations for $185.9 million.

Randgold Resources Limited (NASDAQ: GOLD) is trading lower this morning with the soft gold market.  Shares are down 5.25% at $79.54 on almost 100,000 shares.

SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) is lower this morning on no ral news.  Shares were down 3.8% at $1.01 on almost 1 million shares.

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BP plc (NYSE: BP) defended at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Charles Schwab Corp. (NASDAQ: SCHW) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan.
Compucredit Corp. (NASDAQ: CCRT) Cut to Underperform at KBW.
Limited Brands Inc. (NYSE: LTD) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
McKesson Corporation (NYSE: MCK) reiterated Buy and Raised target to $80 at Auriga.
Metals USA Holdings Corp. (NYSE: MUSA) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan; Started as Buy at KeyBanc.
Neteaste.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES) Reiterate Buy and $49 price target at Auriga.
Portugal Telecom (NYSE: PT) Cut to Neutral at BNP Paribas.
Vimpel-Communications (NYSE: VIP) Started as BUy and $24 target at UBS.
Watson Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: WPI) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.

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JON C. OGG

Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI) Started as Buy at Deutsche Bank.
Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: BRCD) Cut to Market Perform at Bernstein.
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
Marriott International (NYSE: MAR) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
Mirant Corporation (NYSE: MIR) Cut to Sell at Citigroup.
NetEase.com (NASDAQ: NTES) Started as Buy and $49 target at Auriga.
Shanda Interactive Entertainment (NASDAQ: SNDA) Started as Buy and $55 target at Auriga.
Shanda Games (NASDAQ: GAME) Started as Buy and $10 target at Auriga.
Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) Cut to Neutral at Baird.
Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD) Cut to Underweight at Morgan Stanley.

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JON C. OGG

As of October 31, 2009, this index included 34 securities… But the top 5 of the 34 stocks have an approximate weighting of over 39% of the entire ETF.  The top 2 holdings you can trade as ADRs and ADSs in the US are Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) and Netease,com Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES).  The five top holdings and weightings are as follows:

TENCENT HOLDINGS LTD. 10.17 %
BAIDU.COM – ADR                 9.44 %
NETEASE.COM INC-ADR     7.29 %
BYD CO. LTD.                            7.09 %
ALIBABA.COM LTD.              5.76 %

Claymore cited some specific projections for China: China is predicted to claim the world’s highest GDP growth in both 2009 and 2010 and is expected to see a substantial increase in China’s technology demands. Also noted is that approximately $54 billion of China’s $585 billion stimulus package is being allocated to technology advancements.

Jon C. Ogg
December 8, 2009

AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR) is holding up rather well considering it boosted its secondary offering size considerably.

Xilinx, Inc. (Nasdaq: XLNX) is soaring enough on its September guidance that it is also lifting Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR).

Netease.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES) is down on a single block trade of over 437,000 shares.

Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) is holding up rather well considering its juiced up secondary.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX) is up close to 4% on higher guidance.

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JON C. OGG