Financial News

The market is trading on light volume as the world waits on what the Powers-that-be will report this afternoon.

This morning we heard that durable goods orders fell 1.0% in June which was worse than an expected 1.1% gain. The manufacturing sector is not up to par with expectations but there happens to be one stock today that is trading up and on good news.  It just happens to be one of the players from yesterday's Masters New Watch List: RIM, Patriot, and D. R. Horton.

Trading today is choppy and the smell of fear is poignant across the NYSE, Nasdaq, and lame AMEX.  The time is now to review the Negative Nancy Index (QID, FXP, DGZ, DUG, VXX) once again.

Why is that?  How about that Banks and brokerages have lagged behind the U.S. stock market, thus the concern among the "technical analysts" that equites are due to resume their decline.  That's just reason No. 1 (thanks to Bloomberg) and we expect to see more stories today about doom and gloom clouding over the market.

Thanks to Patriot Coal blowing today's conference call, the stock is down 8%.  Now is not the time to buy stocks, but to watch them, pick out a few good ones, and wait to drop in like a vulture on dying prey.

Fellow Masters, we add D.R. Horton, Inc. (NYSE:DHI), Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) , and Patriot Coal Corporation (NYSE:PCX) to our watch list.  These are all solid companies but down on their luck, thus they all have been kicked to the curb by Wall Street and the expectations are now lowered.

Patriot Coal Corp (NYSE:PCX) reports earnings tomorrow morning and the Street is looking for the company to report a loss of 30 cents on sales of $526 million.

Patriot Coal (PCX) shares have traded between $8.04 and its 52-week high of $24.25 over the past 12 months.
PCX shares closed the day at $13.67, up 0.22% or $0.03 and investors are hoping for encouraging news during tomorrow's conference call.

Here's a fun Monday fact for you, individual investor sentiment happens to be at its most pessimistic level in a year (bearish investors up 7.2 points to 45%, vs. 32% bullish) and the big boys are buying up everying.

Mutual funds, pensions and endowments are buying at their fastest rate in this bull market. The last time money managers and individuals were this far apart?

March 2009, before the S&P 500's 63% rally. Mastery recommends going long via the
PowerShares Zacks Small Cap (ETF) (NYSE:PZJ) or the iShares Morningstar Small Growth (ETF) ( NYSE:JKK) to play this thesis.

General Electric (NYSE:GE) is one of the largest companies on the planet, and its shares have gained 8.7% since Tuesday (7/20).  That may not seem like much these days when stocks swing 10 to 20% in a single session, but that move for GE from $14.50 to Friday's close of $15.71 equates to a $12.92 billion gain in market cap.

GE had an incredible Friday after announcing they were increasing their quarterly dividend 20% from $0.10 per outstanding share to $0.12 which is October 25, 2010 to shareowners of record at the close of business on September 20, 2010.  The Big Pimpin' continues Masters.

Happy Weekend Masters, this just in -- Just seven European banks failed a health check and were ordered to raise their capital by 3.5 billion euros ($4.5 billion), confirming fears the continent's long-awaited stress test was too soft.

Europe's Media React to Bank Stress Test Results...

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) just reported its quarterly earnings, posting revenues of $16.04 billion which ahead of Wall Street estimates and up 22% year over year. This still puts it about $300 million ahead of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), so Cupertino’s going to have to wait another quarter to edge Microsoft on the revenue front.

In terms of profit, Microsoft’s $4.52 billion for the quarter far exceeds Apple’s $3.25 billion, so while Apple may be near even in revenue, Redmond’s still making more money. This can be explained by the fact that a large portion of Microsoft’s business is in software, where profit margins are much higher.

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares are falling fast after-hours due to announcing Q2 earnings of $0.45 per share on revenues of $6.57 billion. That wasn't good enough for traders who were expecting the company to post earnings at $0.55 a share on 6.54 billion in revenues.

Going forward Amazon (AMZN) expects operating income is to be between $210 million and $310 million, or between 16% decline and 24% growth compared with third quarter 2009.

The Smoking Jacket, Playboy's nudity-free, "safe-for-work" website, debuted Tuesday -- a bid by the iconic men's magazine to stay relevant in a cyberworld full of anything-goes competitors.

"Cube dwellers and office drones alike shall rejoice at this fun, sexy, satirical antidote to the drudgery of the work day," Playboy editorial director Jimmy Jellinek said in a written statement.

The site, which "provides guys with smart and sexy distractions throughout the day," according to the statement, is geared toward the blogosphere, with short posts and links to viral content from other sites.