AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Aetna, Inc. (NYSE: AET) named Bull of the Day at Zacks.
Alcatel-Lucent S.A. (NYSE: ALU) Cut to Sell at S&P Equity Research.
Ann Inc. (NYSE: ANN) Cut to Underperform at Barclays.
Cardinal Health Inc. (NYSE: CAH) Reiterated Buy with $52 price target at Argus.
Comerica Inc. (NYSE: CMA) Raised to Outperform at RBC.
Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) Raised to Overweight at Piper Jaffray.
FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.
JAKKS Pacific, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAKK) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) named as value stock of the day at Zacks.
PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC) Cut to Market Perform at BMO.
Polypore International Inc. (NYSE: PPO) Raised to Outperform at Baird.
Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Skechers U.S.A., Inc. (NYSE: SKX) Raised to Neutral at Stern Agee.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NASDAQ: TEVA) Cut to Equal-weight at Morgan Stanley.
Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: UA) Reiterated Buy with $90 target at Argus.
Weyerhaeuser Company (NYSE: WY) Cut to Sell at UBS.

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JON C. OGG

It still feels as though calculating a bank’s book value is a bit like calculating the cash per share of an emerging biotech that just experienced an implosion due to a poor drug candidate’s test result. The value may be eroded through time.  Now that earnings season has passed. 24/7 Wall St. has run a screen of the money-center banks, large broker-dealers, and super-regional banks trading at or under book value from the last quarter under the FinViz screen.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) now trades around $25.30 and its October earning’s book value was listed as $45.93 per share, up from $44.77 one quarter earlier and versus $42.29 a year earlier.

Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) is almost embarrassing, or actually it is embarrassing.  After a 2% drop to $5.36 today, BofA’s tangible book value per share in October was $13.22 versus $12.91 a year earlier and compared to $12.65 in the second quarter.  The stated book value per share was $20.80 in the third quarter, down from $21.17 a year earlier and up from $20.29 in the second quarter of 2011.

Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) is another large discount to book value and the $24.60 price compared to a stated book value $60.56 per share and a tangible book value per share of$49.50.

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC), Warren Buffett’s favorite bank, used to trade at a premium to book value but that now trades at 0.93-times its most recently stated book value.

A screen at FinViz gave some key banks that are large and well-known institutions, some of which have no exposure to Europe and/or the PIIGS to speak of, which are trading at a discount to their stated book value.  Others screened from FinViz are as follows, and these banks are all expected to be profitable on an operations basis ahead:

The trust and fiduciary banks are also at discounts.  BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT) trades at 0.88-times its latest book value.  The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE: BK) trades at 0.66-times its latest book value. 

Other regional and large banking outfits are at large discounts too… Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF) trades at 0.64-times its latest book value.  Fifth Third Bancorp (NYSE: FITB) trades at 0.81-times its latest book value.  The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) trades at 0.64-times its latest book value.  Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) trades at 0.64-times its latest book value.  Jefferies Group, Inc. (NYSE: JEF) is just about to have a quarter-end but it trades at 0.64-times its latest book value.  PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: PNC) trades at 0.78-times its latest book value.  SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI) trades at 0.47-times its latest book value.

As a reminder, our take is that even if the market were to suddenly recover, tangible book values would be the first line to watch and stated book value would be much later after that.  The book value game is one that looks and feels shockingly cheap today because the sector’s earnings power is being challenged each and every day.  Until the climate moves beyond winding down prop-trading, not going for many loans, not being able to earn money in the short-term and intermediate-term fixed income markets, and a climate where these are sued over and over for actions of yesteryear and with the regulators running the banks.
 
Value investors and investors screening for “cheap stocks” still need to look elsewhere, unless they know how to model worst case scenarios for about a year or two out from today or if they think they can quantify the regulatory, legal, and operating restriction-adjusted earnings ahead.

JON C. OGG

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) will lead off the banks as far as earnings season.  It is likely that book value here grew or did not fall much and we will be paying attention to Jamie Dimon’s comments on how his internal customers’ credit metrics came out in Q3.  Jamie Dimon showed that book value was listed as $44.77 versus $43.34 the first quarter and versus $40.99 a year earlier.  If Chase is the best quality of the money-center banks that there is, then a $33 handle today generates close to 0.75-times book value.  

Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) noted in July that tangible book value per share was $12.65, down from $13.21 in the first quarter of 2011 and up from $12.14 in the second quarter of 2010.  Its stated book value per share was listed as $20.29 as of June 30, down from $21.15 in the first quarter and down from $21.45 in the same period of 2010.  Shares are trading under $6.50 today.  The trick is not that Bank of America is lying about the book value today.  We think that the number was actually true based upon a snapshot in time, but the issue is that the street cannot figure out how to model its mortgage exposure and lawsuit exposure and what that does to the book value a year or two out.  What if regulators move to press for a break-up of if the company remains under pressure for the long-haul.  What if they keep losing customers over the $5.00 fee for using debit cards for buying goods.  Also, Bank of America is expected to have a loss this quarter and its charges and other issues have likely continued to pressure the book value metrics.  What is there to say about the likely direction of the book value for the foreseeable future.

We ran a screen of banks trading at or under book value from the last quarter under the FinViz screen.  Book value should be considered a ceiling rather than a floor for the time being.  Ultimately that will change, but we live in a climate where banks are winding down prop-trading, not going for many loans, are not able to earn money in the short-term and intermediate-term fixed income markets, being sued over and over for actions of yesteryear, are under more and more regulation, and more.  There is just no real good news that is evident yet and shareholders are going to not care about book value any time soon.

A screen at FinViz gave some key banks valued at over $10 billion and trading under book value, and that is generally the stated book value rather than the tangible book value.  We would note that the price changes of the shares may alter these numbers slightly as the prices move up and down into and during earnings season.  We have also included earnings estimates for the quarter from Thomson Reuters to show which banks have a shot at higher book value rather than the banks losing money: 

BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT) trades at 0.92-times its latest book value.  Earnings estimates for the quarter are $0.49 EPS.

The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE: BK) trades at 0.69-times its latest book value.  Earnings estimates for the quarter are $0.53 EPS.

Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) trades at 0.46-times its latest book value. Earnings estimates for the quarter are $0.84 EPS.

Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF) trades at 0.68-times its latest book value.  This one is in the midst of digesting additional purchases so tallying up a relevant book value may be a couple of quarters out. Earnings estimates for the quarter are $1.68 EPS.

Fifth Third Bancorp (NYSE: FITB) trades at 0.80-times its latest book value. Earnings estimates for the quarter are $0.33 EPS.

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) trades at 0.68-times its latest book value. Earnings estimates for the quarter are $0.37 EPS.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) trades at 0.50-times its latest book value. Earnings estimates for the quarter are $0.34 EPS.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: PNC) trades at 0.81-times its latest book value. Earnings estimates for the quarter are $1.49 EPS.

SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI) trades at 0.51-times its latest book value. Earnings estimates for the quarter are $0.35 EPS.

As a reminder, earnings from operations do not assure that any growth will have been seen in stated book value nor in tangible book value.

******

An exception to the rule: Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) at 1.01-times its most recently stated book value.  Wells Fargo is around $27.00 now, although the book value per share was listed as $23.84 in its July earnings report. Earnings estimates for the quarter are $0.72 EPS.

Until Wall Street investors can figure out where these banks are going to make their profits and until Main Street and state and federal agencies stop putting severe pressure on the banks, what good is book value?  Book value is current a ceiling rather than a floor. 

Value investors and investors screening for “cheap stocks” still need to look elsewhere, unless they know how to model worst case scenarios for about a year or two out from today.

JON C. OGG

Icahn Enterprise was thumped after it made a bid for Clorox, which was rejected. Boeing was hit because large customer American may buy jets from rival Airbus.

Microsoft sold off, probably because of news that smartphone partner is in more trouble

The Flame Index started as a research tool in 2008 at the NY Innovation Design Lab (nyidlab). It was used as a general metric to evaluate companies and their risk in the media. Publicly traded Fortune 500 companies are used as a measure to calculate an overall market of negative news and the companies are ranked within that market

Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.

After running a screen on FinViz, we identified some of the “premium” banks close to or above book value as being M&T Bank Corporation (NYSE: MTB), New York Community Bancorp Inc. (NYSE: NYB), PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: PNC), State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT), TCF Financial Corporation (NYSE: TCB), U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB), and Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC).

Admittedly, there is often a reason and some of these are not quite apples-to-apples comparisons.  Still, the current trend is that book value is now a ceiling rather than a floor.  Value investing just became very convoluted.  We screened out other issues such as brief descriptions, prices and trading ranges, market capitalization rates, and added in other color if applicable.  We also looked at Finviz for price-to-book ratios and confirmed data in press releases from each bank if available.

M&T Bank Corporation (NYSE: MTB) is the holding company for M&T Bank, offering commercial and retail banking services in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.  The market is capitalization is more than $10 billion with a share price of $84.67 and a 52-week range of $72.03 to $95.00. Thomson Reuters has a consensus price target of $95.21.  Finviz currently shows a price-to-book ratio of 1.16, but that has not been confirmed in the most recent quarterly report.  The common equity book value per share at the end of 2010 was $63.54.

New York Community Bancorp Inc. (NYSE: NYB) is the holding company for New York Community Bank and New York Commercial Bank, which offer banking products and services in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Florida, and Arizona.  Its market capitalization is about $6.5 billion with a share price of $14.85 and a 52-week range of $14.40 to $19.33.  Thomson Reuters has a consensus price target of $18.50 and Finviz currently shows a price-to-book ratio of just under 1.2.  The latest earnings release showed that book value per share declined $0.02 to $12.67 per share.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: PNC) is the diversified bank and financial services company with operations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Michigan, Maryland, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, Missouri, Virginia, Delaware, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin.  It has some 2,446 branches.  Its market capitalization rate is $29.4 billion and the drop of 1.6% today has its shares trading at $55.90 versus a 52-week range of $49.43 to $65.19.  Thomson Reuters has a consensus price target of about $71.00 on PNC and Finviz currently shows a price-to-book ratio of 0.96.  PNC’s latest book value in its press release for earnings showed that Book value per common share was $58.01.

State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) is a different sort of bank because it is a custodial bank per its most frequently recognized purpose.  The market cap is $21.5 billion after a 2.4% drop to $42.76 and its 52-week range is $34.37 to $50.26. Finviz currently shows a price-to-book ratio of 1.15.  Thomson Reuters has a consensus price target of almost $55.00 on State Street.

TCF Financial Corporation (NYSE: TCB) is the holding company for TCF National Bank with over 440 branch offices spread out in Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin, Arizona, Indiana, and 1 branch in South Dakota.  Its market capitalization is $2.03 billion after a 2.5% drop to $12.91 and its 52-week trading range is $12.83 to $17.37.  Thomson Reuters still has a consensus price target of $16.86 at this time and that 52-week low was hit today as well. Finviz currently shows a price-to-book ratio of just over 1.2.  Its latest book value with earnings in April was listed as $10.74 per share.

U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) is the second largest of the “above book value banks” in market cap at $47 billion after a 1.4% drop to $24.39.  Thomson Reuters still has a consensus price target of about $30.38 and its 52-week trading range is $20.44 to $28.94.  Generally speaking, it is considered a higher-end bank and it operates a network of approximately 3,000 bank offices.  Finviz currently shows a price-to-book ratio of 1.56, but the latest press release only shows a book value of $14.83 per share..

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a bit of a conundrum now as its market cap is still $140 billion after a 2.1% drop to $26.62.  Its 52-week trading range is $23.02 to $34.25 and the most recent earnings release has a book value of $23.18 per share.  Thomson Reuters still has a consensus price target of about $36.00 on Wells Fargo.  The bank has literally about 9,000 branches all over America.  Finviz currently shows a price-to-book ratio of 1.08.

The first thing to consider is that these book value are all going to change in the coming days and over the next week or two.  Another thing to consider is that many banks will just not trade in tandem.  State Street is not Bank of America, U.S. Bancorp is not Citi.  Still, TCB is not exactly J.P.Morgan by a long shot.  Another consideration is that some hidden values may be lurking in some of the premium banks.  Lastly, logic would dictate that if reports are coming about banks which trade above book value when peer leadership banks are under book value might lead us to make a simple reminder: perhaps that is a bottom.

All things considered, we wanted to identify those banks which screen out in the premium category.  Citi went out at about 0.8-times book value and J.P. Morgan went out at about 0.9-times book value. As a last reminder on book value, asset sales, charge-offs, write-offs, writedowns, quarterly losses, settlements, and a few dozen other items can actually help to lower stated book value per share even if these banks post earnings from normal operations.  Also, if things get worse on the debt ceiling debate with politicians in D.C. and if Europe continues its path to the bonfire you just have to assume that stated book values will only be items that bankers have to answer questions about how the numbers were derived.

Warren Buffett was quoted back in the 1990s saying, “Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now.”  We don’t go along with the Buffett model of “buy and hold forever” any longer, but you get the idea.  Maybe he will put his money where is mouth is and show that he bought more of Wells Fargo C0. (NYSE: WFC), undeniably Mr. Buffett’s favorite bank stock.

JON C. OGG

24/7 Wall St. will look at the Twitter posts at Reuters Biz, WSJ, Financial Times, CNN Money, MarketWatch, CNBC, and 24/7 Wall St. each day to see which stocks are most frequently mentioned. It is clear that in this area of social media these tweets are a sign of which companies the Twitter universe is interested in. Together, these financial sites are followed by nearly 1,000,000 Twitter users, which makes them a sizeable sample of Wall St.’s interests. In some cases, we will publish the actual tweets from the sites.

CNNMoney: For Greece: A promise of more money – and pain http://bit.ly/m72GaY #Greece #debt #crisis

USA Today: PNC buys Royal Bank of Canada US banks for $3.45B http://usat.ly/kdMaSX

Yahoo! Finance: PNC buys Royal Bank of Canada US banks for $3.45B http://yhoo.it/mOg0Rk

WSJ: Airbus: A350 Plan ‘Challenging’ http://on.wsj.com/mTR75F

Reuters Biz: Penney CEO Ullman to leave company in 2012 http://reut.rs/iocaku

WSJ: Moody’s Cuts Tepco to Junk http://on.wsj.com/jXhF0b

Douglas A. McIntyre

ICANN, the global domain name company, will release plans the will expand URLs to include web addresses that end in terms like “apple.” (Reuters)

Sega Sammy shares rose after its Sega system was hacked. (Reuters)

PNC will buy RBC for $3.45 billion. (Reuters)

Borders will name its new bidder on July 1. (Reuters)

Softbank, a shareholder in Alibaba, expects to reach an deal for payments due to the spin-off of Alipay. (Reuters)

The New York Fed and Comptroller of the Currency have put more regulators in the offices of big banks to prevent more credit problem.s (WSJ)

Florida banks have started to lend again. (WSJ)

More energy firms will begin to disclose “fracking” actions. (WSJ)

Ford (NYSE: F) will spend $1 billion to upgrade Lincoln and launch seven new brands. (WSJ)

Giving USA  said donations to charities rose last year. (WSJ)

The UK may privatize some of its administrative services. (WSJ)

Russia will lower holdings of US debt. (WSJ)

Japan had a large trade deficit in May. (WSJ)

Boeing (NYSE: BA) will increase is cyber-protection business. (WSJ)

The US government will maintain its position in the mortgage market indefinitely.(WSJ)

The Paris airshow will favor announcements from Airbus over those from Boeing (NYSE: BA). (WSJ)

GM (NYSE: GM) will price a new small car at about the same level as comparable imports. (WSJ)

Some current features on smartphone may allow people to check out merchandise at retailers. (WSJ)

Cable network ad dollars have begun to catch up with those of broadcast TV. (WSJ)

A Mercer LLC survey shows people will stay in jobs even when they are unhappy because work is still scarce ,(WSJ)

China companies have put more money into Argentina. (WSJ)

Energy companies Stewart & Stevenson and KiOr will have IPOs this week. (WSJ)

Companies with cash overseas want preferred tax treatment if the money is returned to the US. (NYT)

Many employees at tech start ups have sold large numbers of shares to take advantage of the surge in valuations. (NYT)

IHS Global Insight says many cities will see a rise in employment for years. (NYT)

China has stockpiled rare earth metals which may raise prices. (FT)

US budget talks have hit a period in which they are up against a potential Congressional approval before August 2. (FT)

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone games may hurt Nintendo. (Bloomberg)

Concern about growth and the future of local banks has dropped China markets to a 9 month low. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Ingersoll-Rand Plc (NYSE: IR) had a  huge payout hike and a buyback to boot.  The industrial and commercial products maker is hiking its quarterly payout by more than 70% (yes, seventy) to $0.12 per quarter from $0.07 per quarter.  This takes the yield of 0.6% to 1% with shares up around $49.00.  The company also authorized $2 billion for buybacks against what is only a $16 billion market cap.

A key gold dividend announcement came from Newmont Mining Corporation (NYSE: NEM) as the company said that it plans to boost its output and more importantly that it would peg its annual dividend to the price of gold.  The firm sees about $1.00 being paid per year where gold prices are currently. The current dividend is about $0.60, or a 1.1% yield,  and the new dividend based on adjusted prices is about 1.7% if it remains static.   Shares have risen over 3% to $58.45 today and that makes Newmont the dividend king in the gold sector by far.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: PNC) is one we had expected to see after the Federal Reserve picked which companies could hike their payouts to shareholders.  The hike is a monster one, up 250% to $0.35 per quarter from a current rate of only $0.10 per quarter.  The prior 0.6% yield will jump to about 2.2% based on today’s share price nearing $64.00.  PNC now also plans to begin repurchasing shares under a 25 million share buyback plan and that was noted as about $500 million for the rest of 2011.  The market cap is just over $33 billion.

QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) may not seem like a traditional dividend player but that just is proving to not be the case. The new payout is going to $0.215 per quarter from $0.19 per quarter before.  The company has hiked its payout since at least 2004 and the new yield will be about 1.6%.  With its margins it seems like the dividend hikes can continue.  For a reference, Thomson Reuters has its non-GAAP earnings estimate at $3.04 for Fiscal September 2011.

JON C. OGG

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) declared a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share, up from $0.05 after the banks had to cut payouts during the meltdown.  The company also authorized a new $15 billion multi-year common stock repurchase program, but $8 billion was approved for 2011 alone and tha represents about 175 million shares in today’s dollars.  The share repurchase program replaces the prior $10 billion program that had approximately $3.2 billion of remaining authorization. Jamie Dimon is signaling that more hikes may come later… he have a 30% income payout ratio as his goal.  He also noted that its objectives of maintaining a Basel I Tier 1 Common ratio of at least 9.0% and meeting the Basel III requirements were substantially achieved ahead of time. The new yield is close to 2.2%.

U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) hiked its payout by 150% and will now pay $0.125 per common share per quarter and it approved for repurchase some 50 million shares of common stock.  The new dividend yield is approximately 1.8%.

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is also targeting a 30% income payout ratio and is hiking the payouts to $0.12 per common share per quarter from $0.05 previously.  Wells Fargo is also increasing its share buyback authority by some 200 million shares of common stock.  Now it won’t just be Warren Buffett increasing the Wells Fargo share buying.  The new payout to Warren Buffett and investors will be roughly a 1.5% dividend yield.

BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT) hiked is payout with a $0.01 special dividend and took the rate to $0.16 ahead from $0.15 per share per quarter. This represents a mere 6.7% hike, which is probably not as large of dividend news noted above.

The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC) hiked its dividend practice but without formality.  It said that “the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System accepted its capital plan and did not object to its capital actions, which included recommendations to increase the quarterly common stock dividend in the second quarter of 2011 and to purchase shares under PNC’s existing common stock repurchase program.”  PNC submitted the plan in January and it expects to consider an increase in the common stock dividend at its next meeting on April 7, 2011.

We have noted before that we expect the same sort of dividend hikes from The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE: BK) and State Street Corp. (NYSE: STT).  Another big development we expect is a repayment of the 10% preferred shares which Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) sold to Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A).

If you want already-high bank yields, we just updated the highest current regional and super-regional banks that were paying common stock dividend yields of 3%, 4%, and higher.

JON C. OGG

Future US auto sales may be undermined by high gas prices. (Reuters)

China warned its banks about excessive lending. (Reuters)

Japan reported a low inflation rate. (Reuters)

The US Trade Representative put search engine Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) of China on its list of  ”notorious markets” because of  counterfeit and pirated goods sales. (Reuters)

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) experienced an attack on its servers by Chinese hackers. (Bloomberg)

More mergers of stock exchanges are likely. (Reuters)

Barclays (NYSE: BCS) will buy the assets of Citigroup’s (NYSE: C) Egg lending system. (Reuters)

The Government Accountability Office found huge waste among US government agencies. (WSJ)

PNC Bank said it would keep basic fees for bank accounts free. (WSJ)

States may move workers to 401(k) plans from the current pension system. (WSJ)

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae borrow money from the Treasury to pay the Treasury dividends that they own. (WSJ)

The Administration has started to approve deepwater drilling applications. (WSJ)

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A, BRK.B) added another manager who could eventually take Warren Buffett’s job. (WSJ)

Gambling revenue in Macau rose 48% last month (WSJ)

A new Administration report will show that women still make much less than men in comparable jobs. (WSJ)

Obama backed a program to allow state flexibility in implementing new healthcare laws. (WSJ)

Inflation is causing nations to add to programs which offset the increase in prices. (WSJ)

The International Energy Agency said the rise in crude prices could damage the global recovery. (WSJ)

China purchases part of small companies and has raised joint venture participation outside its borders. (WSJ)

The Justice Department has started an investigation into antitrust violations by Fedex (NYSE: FDX) and UPS. (NYSE: UPS) (WSJ)

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) said the online ad industry could reach $100 billion over the next several years. (WSJ)

AT&T (NYSE:T) will send alerts to mobile phones about shopping opportunities when subscribers are near stores. (WSJ)

Investors have moved out of the dollar into the euro even though there are still sovereign debt problems in the region. (WSJ)

Republicans have blocked a free trade agreement with South Korea. (NYT)

The Sustainable Apparel Coalition, a group of major retailers, will begin to report on the products used in clothes they sell. (NYT)

VCs have invested more money in digital music business. (NYT)

The China PMI showed slower growth last month. (FT)

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it is worried about how Citigroup (NYSE: C) values its assets  The concerns were in a report by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. (FT)

Renault and Fiat face sales pressure from VW in Europe. (Bloomberg)

Commodities prices have beaten stock prices over the last six months. (Bloomberg)

Sony Ericsson has moved its developer base to the US and Asia as it accelerates its use of Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre