TradingMarkets Mid-Day Movers

After failing to sustain an
early downward move, the U.S. stock markets are regaining some
ground over the course of morning trading on Friday. The major
averages have come well off their worst levels of the day, with
the Dow and the S&P 500 briefly climbing into positive territory.

Crude for April delivery is trading
flat through the morning at $61.83 per barrel.  Gold is
selling off in this morning’s session currently lower by 1.5% to
$654.90 an ounce.  Concerns over future demand for precious
metals continues to fuel the selloff.

Around Asia, traders are
still cautious after Tuesday’s massive decline.  Shanghai’s
Composite continued to rebound finishing Friday’s session up 1.2%
and the Hang Seng rose by 0.5%.  Tokyo’s Nikkei fell again by
1.4%.

The
PowerRatings
Heat Maps*
from Thursday’s close is starting to show action that has historically led to
strength in the overall markets.  The strongest looking
sectors are Drugs and Computer Software.



Stocks in
Motion

Dell
(
DELL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q4 Earnings Fall 33% (full
story
).  DELL shares rise by 1.7% in early trading.

AIG
(
AIG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q4 Profit Up Sharply, EPS
Misses Consensus; Says Board Approves New Dividend Policy & Stock Repurchase
Program, Shares Rise (full
story
).  AIG shares gain 3.7%.

Berkshire Hathaway
(
BRK.A |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q4 Profit
Declines 30%; Revenue Down (full
story
).  BRK.A shares move higher by 1%.

Kohl’s
(
KSS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q4 Earnings Rise, Top
Estimates (full
story
).  KSS shares jump nearly 6%.

Fluor
(
FLR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q4 Net Earnings Rise 25%, Top
Estimate; Backs FY07 View (full
story
).  FLR shares are trading higher by 3.2%. 

Dean Foods
(
DF |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Reveals Plan To Pay
One-time Special Cash Dividend Of About $2 Bln; Backs Q1 EPS Outlook; Lowers
FY07 EPS Forecast (full
story
).  DF shares shares jump 5%.

For more stories as they happen, go to our
Breaking News section.

Market Snapshot

Dow

-11.29 12,223.05

NASDAQ

-9.25 2,394.96

S&P 500

-3.05 1,400.12

 

NYSE NASDAQ

Volume

1,252,397,000 884,886,000

Advances

1249 1059

Declines

1798 1720

Up Volume

434 298

Down Volume

672 507

New Highs

48 48

New Lows

21 51



Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors

Weakest Sectors

S&P Insurance Index (IUX) CBOE Oil Index (OIX)
Amex Airline Index (XAL) Amex Gold Bugs Index (HUI)
Computer Hardware Index (HWI) Amex Oil Index (XOI)


Economic
News

Michigan Sentiment-rev 91.3 vs
93.3 consensus

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com