Flying Right

No, I am not talking about  Sarah Palin. And no, I am not talking about John “The River” Boehner. I just want to make a quick generalization. Which of the above birds is most likely to pay millions of dollars to lobbying firms, as well as campaign “donations” to our elected officials and regulators?

As you know, I love pointing out conflicts of interest (Last year I loved pointing out the sheer shame of the Bachus-Hensarling letter to the SEC, in which they argued against rushing to ban and act further on order types that flash, especially in options, despite every industry player publicly denouncing them as unfair and an excuse to front run the public). Which is why I loved seeing a major blog (Business Insider) publicize the names of all the hedge funds that have donated $10 million to fend off financial regulation: Click here to view. We give kudos to Henry Blodget’s media operation. More journalists should be asking questions, digging deep, and keeping the millions of dollars on Wall Street honest. If they (media) do not do that service to the public, there is no chance for the middle class. Ever. 

I may just actually put together a list of must-read journalists, so that folks are insured getting the balanced story, and not what they hear on mainstream media.

By the way, you really must look at this piece of art work on ZeroHedge based on Goldman Sachs and Facebook: (View Directly Here). I have not laughed like this deeply in years!

 

Where we left off 4:00pm EST:

INDU               11,722.89                                +31.71

SPX                 1,276.56                                  +6.36

CCMP              2,702.20                                  +20.95

Futures now at 7:30am EST:

DJA                             +66 

SPA                             +4.40

NDA                            +8.25

Key Data out today:

 

08:30:              Initial Jobless Claims (expected 408k)

08:30:              Continuing Claims (expected 4,080,000)

 

Since the prior close, some key stories:

 

–       Ruby Tuesday beat.

–       BofA introduces new fees to replace the debit card ones they had to shed.

–       RIMM announced 4g Tablet.

–       Motorola unveils Tablet.

–       Viagra still touts its purple tablet.

–       LinkedIn want to go public now.

–       Monster Employment Index declines again (4th month in a row).

–       Facebook orders flood Goldman.

–       Goldman fine print on Facebook deal allows for it to dump its stake without letting any investors know. All Goldman Employees are forced to watch the Hampton Stud Josh Birnbaum on how to properly testify before Congressional Inquiry on Facebook in late 2012.

–       CES starts today! See live news here : http://www.engadget.com/ces

–       Congressional panel finds that Deep Water Drilling that led to BP spill needs reform; blames BP. I don’t know what to say about this. How about dear government officials… you are fired for wasting my money?

–       China is home to half of all skyscrapers being built worldwide.

–       European retail sales declined. Doesn’t matter. BTFD.

–       Healthcare spending eats record chunk of GDP. Whoa.

–       Wall Street Structured Notes inexplicably lose money for investors in 2010. You know… those things that guarantee some %, with upside tied to the market performance etc.

–       UN Food and Agriculture Organization warns of a “food price shock” after its benchmark index reached record highs (FT).

 

 

Earnings:

 

Pre-market:  MON STZ 

 

After the Close: SCHN, SHAW

 

 

Significant Movers This Morning:

ISTA +5.2% (guidance) RT +2.8% (earnings) FBP -11.7% (reverse stock split) MSPD -9.2% (guidance) QDEL -7.8% (guidance, secondary) ZUMZ -5.3% (December sales and comps) GRT -3.5% (secondary) AMRN -2.3% (secondary) WBMD -2% (convert deal)