Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Thursday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:
- Yahoo!(YHOO) helped Chinese authorities convict a “cyber-dissident” for allegedly criticizing local officials over the Internet, human-rights group Reporters Without Borders said.
- The Bank of Japan will keep pumping cash into the economy and hold interest rates at almost zero as policy makers gather more evidence that deflation has ended.
- A “suspicious substance” found in the US Senate’s Russell Office Building in Washington late today was determined to be non-threatening, and workers were allowed to return to their non-threatening, and workers were allowed to return to their offices, Capitol Police said.
- SanDisk Corp.(SNDK) today announced that it intends to accelerate the expansion of the 300-millimeter wafer fabrication facility in Yokkaichi, Japan.

London-based Times:
- GlaxoSmithKline Plc(GSK) may receive a combined US tax bill of over $12 billion.

South China Morning Post:
- At least six Chinese Internet companies will hold IPOs overseas this year, raising as much as $1 billion.

Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Goldman Sachs:
- Reiterated Outperform on (UDR), (CRL), (LAD), (ACLS) and (IMCL).
- Reiterated Underperform on (RAI), (MAXY) and (EAT).

Night Trading
Asian Indices are unch. to +1.0% on average.
S&P 500 indicated -.03%.
NASDAQ 100 indicated unch.

Morning Preview
US AM Market Call
NASDAQ 100 Pre-Market Indicator/Heat Map
Pre-market Commentary
Before the Bell CNBC Video(bottom right)
Global Commentary
Asian Indices
European Indices
Top 20 Business Stories
In Play
Bond Ticker
Daily Stock Events
Macro Calls
Rasmussen Consumer/Investor Daily Indices
CNBC Guest Schedule

Earnings of Note
Company/EPS Estimate
(AET)/1.23
(AG)/.34
(AYE)/.20
(AMLN)/-.59
(AN)/.33
(BWA)/1.19
(BYD)/.61
(BCO)/.75
(BG)/.86
(CCE)/.14
(CVH)/.80
(MAR)/.98
(MLM)/.90
(MBI)/1.38
(MET)/1.01
(PNRA)/.51
(SKYW)/.63
(TBL)/.62

Upcoming Splits
- None of note

Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
- Initial Jobless Claims for last week are estimated to rise to 285K versus 273K the prior week.
- Continuing Claims are estimated to rise to 2518K versus 2509K prior.

10:00 am EST
- Wholesale Inventories for December are estimated to rise .5% versus a .4% increase in November.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are higher, led by technology and financial stocks in the region. I expect US equities to open modestly higher and to build on gains into the afternoon. The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into the day.

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